Buying small plot of land from neighbours, advice needed.

Wooden

Hi, just wanting abit of advice on purchasing a small plot of land at the back of my property, how do you get it valued / get the deeds changed ect ... ? cheers

See pic below for current layout ... 2 properties side by side both had parking bays that ran the width of both our rear yards, before i bought my house, next door extended their rear yard out onto their parking bay to make room for a conservatory, for some reason they fenced off the remaining part of their parking bay from their rear yard, they now have no access to this peice of land (unless they remove the fence they put up).
This piece of land is tarmac and measures 2.4m x 3.1m, so including my pathway that sits next to it i could increase the size of my rear yard by almost 10m2.

Now before i go and knock on their to ask if they want to sell it, would anyone have a rough idea as to what it would be worth ?
If we agree a price ourselves, do we then just go to a solicitor to get the deeds changed ? What kinda of rough cost is involved for the solicitor / change of deeds ?
I know no ones going to be able to give me exact answers, but surely someone has been in a similar position and would be able to give me a few pointers.

Cheers

** I was going to post a link to the pic of the current layout, but the forum won't let me, would anyone be able to post it up for me if i emailed / PM'd them the pic ?**

Cheers again.

G_M

For a fee (£100?) a surveyor will give you a valuation, based on the size of the plot and price of land in the area. However it will just be a guess.

At the end of the day the land is only of value to you and your neighbour. Noone else would want it. So its value is simply the price you are prepared to buy at and what your neighbour is prepared to sell at.

You'll need to create a new Land Registry record for the land, or amend your current property's record to include the land, so budget £3/400 for legal fees and srveyor fees? Just a wild guess!

calypso_rhapsody

Hi - we bought some land from a neighbour a few years back. We agreed terms with the neighbour (which took about 3 years!) and then instructed our solicitor to do a contract and register the new title at Land Registry. Can't remember what he charged but it was be a bit less than a house conveyance but not much less ....

If either of you has a mortgage, you may need to get the lenders involved. Indeed i would guess he won't be able to sell his bit without his lender's agreement - in which case the fees might get out of hand ... if he has to get a formal valuation etc ....

In terms of agreeing a price, we were dealing with a rather larger area in a rural setting and my starting point was the price of arable land (as it was a field at the time) but in the end we paid a lot more because of the value enhancement to our property and the fact that there was no other bit of land we could buy to achieve that enhancement.

In your situation, i'd think about what the extra bit of land would do to the value of your property and to the value of your neighbours - would the loss of this patch make his property less valuable? Also remember to take account of the cost of any work you will need to do to combine the land into yours - probably not much in your case (but i had not appreciated quite how expensive fencing can be!)

Good luck!

GDB2222

In London, land is generally said to be worth £5-10m a hectare (10,000 sq m). So, say £1,000/ sq m. You are buying 7 sq m. So, £7k is your starting point. Ofc, you may not be in London, but you get the idea. You'd obviously argue that the land is pretty useless, etc ....

Wooden

Cheers for the replys, this is my first property so not realy that clued up as to what value it would add to my property, as to wether it would knock value off the neighbours property, im not sure, as it is now its completely blocked off from their yard and they have no access to it, im not sure if it was the current neighbour who actually extended the yard or not, they might not even know that piece of land is theirs ??
Im in Carlisle Cumbria so id imaging that the cost of land would be a bit cheaper than London, the whole property only cost me £77k !!
I might just give them a knock and see what they say, atleast i have 1/2 an idea as to how to proceed.

Cheers

clutton_2

have you downloaded the deeds and plans of all properties which abut this ground just to make sure its not in any one else's ownership ? £4 per property on landregistry.gov .uk

Wooden

clutton wrote: »

have you downloaded the deeds and plans of all properties which abut this ground just to make sure its not in any one else's ownership ? £4 per property on landregistry.gov .uk

Cheers for that, no i haven't, didn't even know you could ... just had a quick look on the site, but to be honest, i'm not really sure what i'm looking for, anymore info ?

Cheers

clutton_2

if memory servies me you in put the post code on "find a property" - but its closed till monday morning...

you need to download the title and the plan - which gives you the map of each property which adjoins this land

Wooden

Ah right, ok, theres only my property thats adjoined to it, so it can only belong to the nieghbour realy (?), for the sake of £4 tho its maybe worth a look anyway.

Cheers

F_T_Buyer

PM me the link, and I'll post if you like.

F_T_Buyer

Here's the link: http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y221/ricmetcalf/Backofhouse.png