Who owns the land?

[mcmurray]

Hi All,
I'm looking at another cottage (1900s?) on Friday and I've a question concerning tracing ownership of land.
The cottage only has space for parking one car but eight feet across the track directly infront of the cottage is a patch of overgrown land with two old 1950s prefab garages being held up with foliage This would be ideal as parking.
I spoke to the agent who didn't know who owned the garages (also said they couldn't ask the vendor as they were only dealing with solicitors - whats that all about?), I also spoke to the estate agent selling the house opposit the cottage which on the face of it looks like it is associated with the patch of ground.... they informed me that it is not part of that property. I plan to knock on some doors tonight and ask, however, is there any other means of tracking down the owner?

Thanks,
Alastair

 

[Pford75]

(also said they couldn't ask the vendor as they were only dealing with solicitors - whats that all about

Could be a probate sale (ie. the vendor is dead)

Or could be a sale after repossession.

You can check with the land registry on who owns the land (although there is no guarantee that the land is registered)

 

[MdB]

This is a question that I've been wondering about as nobody knows who owns the road outside of our house.

My understanding is that the first place to check is the land registry. However, in Cornwall at least, only a small percentage of land associated with old buildings is registered (only 1 of our 7 neighbours is for example).

The next point of call is to find somebody that has a bit of paper that says that they own it. It is a bit difficult to ask everybody though...

However, my rather vague belief of property law states that both of the above count for little if a third party has been using the land as their own for a period of time. However, I don't know how long this period of time needs to be with various people mentioning differing number of years.

So, if you fail to find an owner via the land registry or by knocking on doors, you could just knock down the garages and start using the land and wait for somebody to complain. The worst that could happen is that the real owner would turn up and turf you off and possibly ask for compensation for the loss of garages. However, if they are in a bad state, they couldn't ask for much. I would very strongly suggest that you check all of this out with a solicitor (and possibly the police) first as this course of action may get you into deep trouble too.

I would be very interested to hear an experts view on this if anybody has one.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

What is the next step when you find the land is not registered? I have a similar problem with the plots at the back of our garden, and tracking the original deeds to our house has drawn a blank.

 

[Flyfisher]

If the vendors want everything handled by their solicitors then why not ask them directly?

Check with Land registry, as already suggested, but don't be surprised if the land isn't registered.

Part of our lane is not registered although we have paperwork proving our ownership. We recently had to fight off a claim of ownership by, wait for it, the Lord of the Manor (who happens to reside somewhere in Wales. The first we heard of it was a letter from Land Registry asking if we had any objection to this person claiming the piece of land. Obviously we did have an objection and were able to prove he had no claim and it was duly rejected by Land Registry. That prompted us to register the land in our name but Land registry wouldn't allow us to register because of some issue with the precise working on the conveyance to the previous owner (something about the words "in fee simple" missing).

Land Registry suggested we make a registration based on it having been used by us for the past 12 years (I think it was). Between us and the previous owner this was easy to prove but turned out to be unacceptable when we explained that other people have a right of way along part of the lane. This means that we could not claim to have "excluded all others" from the land for the required period of time.

So we have legal paperwork good enough to show that we own the land and can't be legally challenged, but we can't actually register it. The people at LR were very helpful and told us that there are countless similar examples all over the country, even though they are pushing very hard to have every piece of land in the country registered.

Meanwhile, if you find a piece of unregistered land and occupy it for (I think) 12 years, excluding everyone else in the process (e.g. fencing it off) then you should be able to claim ownership and have it registered at LR in your own name.

 

[TimM]

Its actually become quite complicated - a change in the law a couple of years ago has made it more difficult to establish adverse possession. Basically though on unregistered land, you'd need to be using them for 12 years, and excluding anyone else's use, to assert this (but you can take into account previous occupants use, if this can be proved) - basically if the garages are an important reason for the purchase and they aren't on the deeds, and there's no proof they've been used (without paying rent) by predecessors living in the cottage - well (realistically) you aren't going to be able to take legal possession.

You could just use them, for sure. Another possibility is that they may be owned by the local authority (or successor housing associations) as many of these kind of garages (some derelict) are, at least up this way. Even so, if the house across the way is for sale, new owners there might have similar ideas - this could be helpful, or the foundation for a 'neighbours from hell' kind of battle...

 

[Flyfisher]

Adverse possession - that was the phrase I was looking for in my earlier post!

 

[chuckey]

A bit off topic but here goes. Location Wensleydale,the field boundaries are all dry stone walls. So as you wander about there is typicaly say a 5' verge between the road and the field wall. In my case the lane has a verge of 2-3' before the stone walls until you come to the end of my plot (long thin thing parallel to the road), then the verge expands to 18' my side of the lane and about 15' the other. These wide verges are all shrubbery and trees and basicaly taper back to "normal" widths up the hill over a distance of say 300 yards.
My question is what was going on here? when they built the stone walls why have them so far from the lane or more likely a track?
Frank

 

[JoceAndChris]

I think they just couldn't be bothered to hack it back, they put the wall where it was easiest. I've got the same issue today, I could gain an extra 12 feet all round if I could face hacking it all down and creating the boundary on the field side.

Willing to be proved wrong though!

 

[mcmurray]

Simple answer - ask around, we hit the jackpot with the first neighbour, as they owned the garages! Also give you the lowdown on a place which is hard to get from other sources.

Alastair

NB: I thought I should answer just to close out the thread.

 

[Tom]

Simple answer - ask around, we hit the jackpot with the first neighbour, as they owned the garages!

Ah, but do they really 'own' the garages and land or are they part way through claiming through adverse possession? They may have 'told' you they own them but.........

Jaqy

 

[Schoolmarm]

.....................and they may have a nephew who wants the house. :lol: :lol:



I would take neighbour tales with a pinch of salt.

 

[Flyfisher]

Indeed. Trust, but verify.