house in the area have claimed a piece of land next to their home

Johnhowell

If the verge at the gable end of the house is part of the Highway, they can not adversely possess highway land. This is encrouchment and can be dealt with under the Highways Act 1980.

Call the local council - Highway Records department and see if it is part of the highway. The local and County council may also own the land - other than highway - for example parks and leisure. Sadly most councils do not register their land with HMLR, but will record all their deeds on the Terrier Map of Assets - Assets Management or Property Management departments.

If you are concerned then do call the council departments.

It has happened around our area, and the council charge these people to remove the fencing, etc.

Good Luck,
John

spendapennyortwo

thank you, John. Not sure what you mean about the highway land thing. it's hard to describe where the land that they own in their front garden ends, as it falls into the grassy area that I've assumed for as long is council property. that's why it took my husband by surprise when he saw the fence going up, he called them 'chancing *bleeps*' for doing that (he's pretty level headed so coming from him he must have felt they were in the wrong).
if the land was all theirs, surely their back garden fence wouldn't be sectioned off where it is.
waiting on written reply from the council, will post update on it when I hear from them. I don't want to be getting into a ruckus with the family, I only want to know if what they are doing is well within their rights or not.

wywywywy

You can check who owns what for a small fee here.
http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/wps/portal/Property_Search

Trollydolly_2

Hi there

Just to add from the other side.....

I bought my house (its ex council) about 5 yrs ago. Its an end terrace next to a huge playing field . Next to each of the end houses is a piece of grass land of approx 25 meters by 7 meters. There are about 10 houses in my group (horse shoe shape) and some are owned and some are still council houses.

When I bought the house the estate agent randomly said that the piece of grass next to my house came with the property as the old lady who lived there before me had bought it from the council about 10+ yrs previous. At some point in that 10+ yrs she had asked for planning permission to build an extention, which had been granted. For some reason (money i expect) she had never built the extention, nor had she fenced off the area.
The council still cut the grass as its just another block of open grass like all the others.

When I bought the house we asked the solicitor to look into if it was part of the property or not (we were going to buy it anyway). They confirmed that yes it was part of the property and we got it all marked out on the deeds.

Fast forward 5ys and we have finally got together the £2500 to put a fence with gates all the way round. This has now been done and we have a HUGE garden now

We have had various comments of people thinking we have nicked the land etc and even heard some quite nasty comments as people are walking past the other side of the fence.

Yesterday at 4am some little !!!!!! stole one of the panels, luckily i heard the racket and chased them so got it back.

What am I supposed to do? Stick a sign on the fence saying, yes we do own this land and have done for 5 yrs and it has not been council land for over 15 years??????????

Our fence does not effect anybodys view, parking,infact it doesnt effect anyone at all, it even makes that part of the estate look better!

Whats wrong with people???

I hope if you find out it is their own land (maybe they had the same situation as us) then your husband will take back his jealous 'chancing *bleeps*' comment. The moral of this story is DON'T JUDGE

If you find it isnt their land and they are Chancing Bleeps then why not do what the little !!!!!! did to me and nick the panels, they are worth alot of money and it will really p!ss them off

planning_officer

The main issue is one of planning, not ownership or anything else. Even if someone owns adjoining land, that does not mean it is part of the lawful residential curtilage and therefore cannot be fenced off to be included within the garden - that's a change of use of the land. It's irrelevent how long someone has owned land for - it's the planning status of the land that matters.

I'm currently dealing with someone who wants to fence off land to the side of their property - they own it, and have done for years. However, on the original plans for the estate they live on, the areas of land to the sides and front of the houses were designated as open land rather than as part of the residential curtilages (i.e. gardens). They cannot therefore enclose this land off, as whilst they own it, it is not part of their garden. It turns out too, that another household has already done the same thing, so we will have to write to them to tell them to remove the fence.

I suspect your case (and may be even the post above) could be something similar!

ic

I'm another one who has moved into my house and then fenced off the land to the side. The official deeds show my property as the end terrace plus an 18 yard wide strip to the side, but this had never been properly closed off in over 100 years. It just looked like one of those random gaps you see between runs of terraced houses - partially tarmaced, concreted, flagged. Someone had kindly dumped the contents of their driveway there, and kids used it as a short cut to get to a church at the back. I've moved in and fenced it all off - leaving in a gated route for my neighbours to access their back gardens as they have a right to this.

Prior to doing this and getting the driveway done I had all sorts of trouble with neighbours and visitors to the church who kept blocking my parked car in. That's all ended now and I live happily with a good sized secure back garden and large driveway. Its all lifted the area, the house was tatty, now its clean and tidy.

Trollydolly_2

Just to add that before we put the fence up we checked with the planning dept and they said it was ok to put the fence up. The lady on the other end to us (next to the road, not the park had started to get her fence up and has had to stop because she didnt ask for permission and therefore didnt realise that because she was so close to the road she does actually need to seek official planning consent. She now has to take the fence down

spendapennyortwo

thanks everyone for your input into this matter. I am still waiting on the matter being dealt with with the coucil. I got a reply from them to apologise for wording the letter wrongly, they appreciate it's only an 'enquiry' and not a complaint as they worded it.
it really is about the planning issue, not about whether it's their land or not (as planning officer has pointed out), I think that's really what I was getting at, I've just not put my point across v well! Will let you know the outcome, wish the council would hurry up.

WobblyGoblin

Hmm, so you noticed someone claiming some land that doesn't seem to affect you at all. You then query it with the council for no other reason than you are interested. You also hope that it doesn't affect your relationship with the neighbours.

If the council tells them to pull down the fence I would suspect the relationship with the neighbours will suffer. By all accounts their actions aren't affecting anyone. I am just struggling to see where you are coming from. You're antagonising them for no good reason as far as I understand it.

spendapennyortwo

Update: Received a letter from the council last week stating that there has been no breach of planning control from the neighbour up the road who fenced off the grass area at the gable end of their house. It is infact their land afterall.

I am a bit suprised but if the council are claiming the land is the home owner's then fair enough. The family aren't doing any harm by this. My curiosity got the better of me!