Buying land from a neighbour

alfie14

Hello, Can anyone tell me how I go about buying a small strip of land (approx 3ft wide x 15ft long) off my neighbour.

Before we bought our house the previous owners put up a wall between this house and next door. They decided to put the wall up so that 3ft of it could be used by the neighbour. This happened approx 12 years ago.

Since this time, we've bought this house and the neighbours next door have moved and we now have new neighbours.

Even though this strip of land isn't very big and is of no use to my neighbour, it would make a big difference to us as we could then get an extra car on our drive.

We have spoken to our neighbour and they seem quite happy about us buying the land but we have no idea how much to offer.

My main question is that since the land is still showing on the offical plans as belonging to our house do we need to involve a solicitor or can we just draw up our own agreement and then rebuild the wall to suit?

All advice greatly recieved.

Thanks

VIGILANT22

Quote ......do we need to involve a solicitor

YES

POSSETTE

SO IN REALITY YOU ALREADY OWN IT DONT YOU,ITS JUST THAT SOMEONE BUILT A WALL and got away with claiming your land....if it is classed as there land,thier mortgage company will need to be informed as its lowering the value of thier house.
I had massive garden in previous house,too big for me,that i wanted to offer 3 houses the chance to buy my land and move fences to make thier garden larger.I was told i had to tell mortgage supplier for my house would devalue.
Sold house for vast profit instead!

lizzielondon

if you own it why do you need to buy it???

is it a timescale thing? i.e. it's been behind a wall for a number of years etc ?

alfie14

Thanks guys.

I suppose the land has always belonged to our house (at least according to our plans) but as the wall was put up over 10 years ago I've been told that we have lost our rights to it. I haven't had this confirmed by a solicitor but I've been told by a number of people that we have now lost our rights to it. Do any of you know if this is true? As neither I or the neighbours currently living next door were here at the time, it's very difficult for us to know what really happened back when the wall was put up.:)