Is land my land?

--Tony--

Hope someone can help with this?
When I bought my house it had a prefab garage on the side, I an an end terrace adjoining a council owned open space where people walk dogs etc.

The garage is only really used as a workshop as in order to use it for a car you would have to drive across part of the council grassed area which is also in front of the house. I'm told the original owner used to do this but were asked not to. As you might guess my house is strange with a garage and double gates to the front garden but to access for a car.

Anyhow I was thinking about applying for planning to knock down the garage and replace it with a two story extension of the same size.

My neighbour told me that when the owners before last put the garage up about 20 years ago they helped themselves to some of the council land to make it fit.

I mentioned this to the architect who just said that the council wont check.

As you can understand I am a little worried, someone did tell me if you look after land for 5 year and nobody claims it then its yours?

I'm just not sure where I stand I would not like to build an extension then have to knock it down!.

I have been here 6 years and the garage since the early 80's and the then owners planted Leylandi trees between the garage and council ground which not have trunks 4"-6" round.

silvercar

As a starting point go to the Land Registry site and download the map for your property. (costs £2, or £4 if you want both bits)

http://www.landregisteronline.gov.uk/servlet/TitleSearchServlet

That will tell you if it is on your deeds or not.

If it isn't your I would have thought your solicitor would have told you this when you bought the house.

--Tony--

silvercar wrote:

As a starting point go to the Land Registry site and download the map for your property. (costs £2, or £4 if you want both bits)

http://www.landregisteronline.gov.uk/servlet/TitleSearchServlet

That will tell you if it is on your deeds or not.

If it isn't your I would have thought your solicitor would have told you this when you bought the house.

Thanks, I did get the plans from the land registry which I downloaded but its not really that clear, it does show some land but I don't think it looks like what I have.I guess I need to get a scale ruler and try to work out the exact amout but at this time I'm assuming they did take some.

Ian_W

--Tony-- wrote:

As you can understand I am a little worried, someone did tell me if you look after land for 5 year and nobody claims it then its yours?

I think, Tony, you're thinking of adverse possession or "squatters rights" which used to be 12 years but is now even more complicated due to law changes. Also a recent European Court ruling appears to say that it's contrary to Human Rights legislation that UK law can allow the confiscation of land without compensation to the rightful owner, even if they haven't used the land for many years.
Have a read of this
https://www.foot-ansteys.co.uk/pdf/property-bulletins/property-group-oct-2003.pdf

and this is a quote from UK Garden Law:
Is Adverse Possession dead?
In the case of Pye v UK the European Court of Justice ruled that Article 1 of the Human Rights Act 1998 which entitles a person " to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions" had been breached by the long established right to possessory title after 12 years uncontested occupation which was reiterated only relatively recently in the Limitation Act 1980.
The European Court said:
"The taking of property in the public interest without payment of compensation reasonably related to its value is justified only in exceptional circumstances...... this principle is not confined to taking a property for public purposes but is equally applicable to the compulsary transfer of property from one individual to another"

If it isn't your land, it would probably be cheaper to buy it from the Council than get involved in this legal minefield!!

--Tony--

The thing is I bought this house as it stands 6 years ago.

I have re-checked the land registry maps and they are very hard to see any detail on as the maps are such small scale but my best measurement is that I have a 2.5m strip at the end of my house and the maps show about 1.5m to maybe 2m so it does look like a little extra may have been obtained 20 years ago.

But I still don't know what to do, do I hope nobody ever notices or take legal advice against the people who sold to me or even leagl advice on claiming continued use for the last 20 years?