Purchasing garden off a neighbour?

Beckyy

This is a very new idea, and my partner and I are trying to work out whether it's possible.

We live in a 1 bed cottage, with a very small courtyard, and a shared gravel area with our neighbour. We have a very large stone outbuilding which takes up the majority of our courtyard and only leaves a small space for us., We are considering looking into planning permission etc. for joining it onto the house, but that would then leave us with no garden, which is more important than the size of the house to me.

Behind our house there is a bed and breakfast which has a large garden area, although we're not sure if they would be willing to, we would like to enquire about purchasing part of their garden off them, cash purchase. Ideally between 20-25ft square. (If we did use the outbuilding to extend, the buildign would not go onto the new piece of land if that has any significance)

I'm assuming that if they were willing to, then they would get it valued by an estate agent and go from there. I was wondering if anybody had any experience of this type of thing? We also have a mortgage, which if was totally necessary we could pay off, but would rather keep our capital and carry on with the monthly payments. How would adding land to the property affect a mortgage? We're located in the North of Scotland if that's any help.

I was hoping we could get any pieces of advice for informaton on this type of experience to see if it's possible before we look further into it.

McKneff

Everything else depends totally on whether they will sell you any land.

If they say no, then everything else is irrelevant.

The first thing you should do is ask them, then take it from there.

Catblue

I would ask informally first in a friendly way. The answer is likely to be no and then you don't have to bother with all the other research.

Colincbayley

Beckyy wrote: »

Ideally between 20-25ft square. (If we did use the outbuilding to extend, the buildign would not go onto the new piece of land if that has any significance)

Are you sure you mean 20 - 25ft square?
That is a very, very small area!

McKneff

Colincbayley wrote: »

Are you sure you mean 20 - 25ft square?
That is a very, very small area!

I took it that they meant squarish 20 x 25 ft ish and not
25sq ft which would only be, as you point out a piddly 5ft x 5ft ish

Colincbayley

McKneff wrote: »

I took it that they meant squarish 20 x 25 ft ish and not
25sq ft which would only be, as you point out a piddly 5ft x 5ft ish

I don't disagree, buy you can just imagine it all going through, solicitor, HMLR and at the end of the day ending up with a patch as big as a groundfloor loo

McKneff

Colincbayley wrote: »

I don't disagree, buy you can just imagine it all going through, solicitor, HMLR and at the end of the day ending up with a patch as big as a groundfloor loo

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

or a small narrow pathway, 2ft wide x 10ft

:rotfl::rotfl:

Colincbayley

McKneff wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

or a small narrow pathway, 2ft wide x 10ft

:rotfl::rotfl:

Could be a problem if you then stuck a six foot high fence on either side of it.

Beckyy

Thanks for the replies guys. Whoops, I meant a qaure which was 20-25ft on each side, dodgy wording there :P. Right, i'll have a see about looking into it. But if anybody has any experience with this type of thing I'm still on the look out for info

Slinky

Can't see why you'd need to involve an estate agent. In these sorts of cases the land is only worth what the landowner asks/what you are prepared to pay for it.

G_M

Difficult to value. After all the land has NO value to anyone but the current owner and you.

However an independant surveyor would put a value on it if asked - based on similar deals/variations in prices of properties identical apart from garden size etc.

Whether that value would match what the seller wanted or you were willing to pay is another question!