About to exchange, half of garden owned by council

RAS

Can I also add that since the right to extend a property is often proportional to the land area within the curtilage, it may be advantageous to a neighbour to purchase this land, as they could build a bigger extension on their house.

We have a similiar situation locally where an extension was granted because it only covered half the land area. The fact that the other half of the land area was a side road used as access by all the houses in the row was not taken into consideration.

I would not even sign so the solicitor can exchange later. You have to inform the mortgage company unless the property is as valued. Insist that the vendor purchases the land before sale.

Why was this not noticed previously?

Fatboy40

RAS wrote: »

Why was this not noticed previously?

Because, from what I'm aware of, the EA may have ignored the note they received from the Vendor, and the Vendor did not inform their solicitor of this either durin gthe current legal process.

gauly

That looks to be quite a significant part of the garden - without it the garden would be very small. I think that might make a difference to a mortgage company's valuation of your property. Would that be a problem to you if the mortgage company down-valued the property?

Fatboy40

gauly wrote: »

That looks to be quite a significant part of the garden - without it the garden would be very small. I think that might make a difference to a mortgage company's valuation of your property. Would that be a problem to you if the mortgage company down-valued the property?

We're borowing 52% of the cost of the property, so even if they down-valued it I think we should still be under 60% LTV.

ILW

Fatboy40 wrote: »

Because, from what I'm aware of, the EA may have ignored the note they received from the Vendor, and the Vendor did not inform their solicitor of this either durin gthe current legal process.

Surely, one of the first things that a solicitor would do is to check that the seller actually owned the plot, not leave it till the day before exchange.

Fire_Fox

The council are not going to give this land away for free, they have a legal responsibility to the taxpayer and you will have to cover their legal fees. Can't you find out what the neighbours paid a few years ago and drop your price by at least that?

sunshinetours

The verbal agreement with the council seems the bit I woud be most concerned about. Isn't that highly unusual for a public body to have a verbal agreement??

Definitely needs sorting before you exchange though. With resepect your solicitor sounds useless. She should be advising you not to exchange until this is sorted IMO

Fatboy40

sunshinetours wrote: »

The verbal agreement with the council seems the bit I woud be most concerned about. Isn't that highly unusual for a public body to have a verbal agreement??

Definitely needs sorting before you exchange though. With resepect your solicitor sounds useless. She should be advising you not to exchange until this is sorted IMO

I absolutely agree, my wife though wants to sign. I'm about to finish work for the day and go home ready for the solicitors appointment, and I can see us having a massive arguement over this

Fire_Fox

Just tell your wife the solicitor will not allow you to exchange.

ILW

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Just tell your wife the solicitor will not allow you to exchange.

Just tell your wife to get back in the kitchen and make the tea.