Adverse Possession of a basement

poppysarah

HolyNougat wrote: »

I am not sure that this is a very good idea.....

This time of year a burst pipe can do a lot of damage.

But you're right. It'd be a really rubbish thing to do. Although one good reason for not using a basement of a house you don't own.

ceridwen

But I really think the $64,000 question right now (having established that its a utility room - and not a "whole home" to this person) is:

- HOW MUCH was paid for this house?

For instance - at the time I bought my house I had a very good idea what houses of that type in my area fetched - so that I could check out whether I was being expected to pay "over the odds" for my house (in which case - I wouldnt have bought that particular house) or getting an absolute "bargain" (in which case I would have wanted to know WHY I was getting such a bargain).

Neither applied in my case - I paid pretty much what the "going rate" was for my house. But one DOES always have to ask questions if the price is either more or less than the "going rate" - in order to work out whether to smile/frown/forget the whole idea.....

I think we really DO need the answer to those two questions before we can make much headway on this issue:
1. Was the house a "bargain" price and, if so, by what sort of amount - £5k less than comparable, £20k less than comparable?
2. What happened about viewing the basement on buying the house and where is the entrance to the basement?

Until those questions are answered - its not really possible to see who is "in the right" here.

HolyNougat

Well actually there is no way to get into the basement from the house. If I did decide to 'retake' the basement I would need to rip up the floor. There is no way to establish that the house has this basement, but I did take up part of the floor and you can clearly see it down there when you do...

There was a survey carried out, but it, amazingly, did not pick up on the basement!

Does the flying freehold devalue the property? - Well the only way to find out would be to put it on the open market I suppose.

ceridwen

HolyNougat wrote: »

Well actually there is no way to get into the basement from the house. If I did decide to 'retake' the basement I would need to rip up the floor. There is no way to establish that the house has this basement, but I did take up part of the floor and you can clearly see it down there when you do...

There was a survey carried out, but it, amazingly, did not pick up on the basement!

Does the flying freehold devalue the property? - Well the only way to find out would be to put it on the open market I suppose.

Not necessarily - and not fair to anyone who would take it being "on the market" as "genuinely up for sale" (been there....will still "kill the little blighter" if I ever get the chance:mad:).

What you could do is ask a couple of estate agents for valuations on two identical houses:
- 1. the one you "thought" you had bought (ie with a basement) ...errrm....that does raise another question....
ie - did you know the house had a basement before you bought it - or did you only find out when you ripped up the floor (?presumably to do some work on the house - or were you checking to see if there was anything other than the earth one would expect to see underneath the floorboards?)
- 2. the one you "actually" bought (ie no access to the basement)

and see what the difference was between those two prices and which of those two prices you actually paid.

You need to have those two price levels before deciding further what (if anything) you can do about the situation.

BTW - is there any sign at all that there was ever access to this basement area from your house?

Further question - what is the normal procedure when one buys a house but doesnt own it "top to toe"? Are buyers usually told "BTW - you dont own the bit over the top of your head or underneath your feet."

I have only come across this twice before and both times the potential buyer was informed before contracts were exchanged and did not proceed with the purchase.

1. I myself was considering buying a 3 storey house - until I realised I would only actually be purchasing the first 2 storeys of the house and there was no access to floor 3 from my house (because the next door neighbour owned floor 3 of my house). That was certainly a wierd situation to be in - but I guess they had no choice but to tell me - as it was clear from outside that the house had 3 floors - so I would have been asking questions as to why there didnt seem to be a staircase to get to floor 3.

2. The other instance was where a friend took me with them to view a property and they were all set to buy it when their solicitor told them they didnt own/have access to a part of it. They didnt proceed with purchase.

ceridwen

NB: Is it possible to get sight of the original deeds of your house (ie when it was originally built) to see if the basement was originally deemed to be part of your house and whether it was either sold or "gifted" to the next door neighbour at any point?

I know one doesnt get given all the deeds to the house from way back when until one has actually paid off the mortgage - but I would imagine there must be some legal way to at any rate get a look at them.

I know I have checked back re a bit of land that originally came with my house to see whether it still belongs to my house and, unfortunately, found evidence that ownership of it had been transferred before I ever bought my house...:mad::(

ceridwen

A further thought on whether the basement devalues the property. Assuming that you paid the same price for the house as you would have done if it didnt have a basement at all - then I would say that it DOES devalue the property.

Reason - one of the main reasons why any of us buy a house (or bungalow) - rather than buying a flat or maisonette is because we KNOW that we dont have any neighbours either above or below us. The worst that can happen from having bought a house is a neighbour that has a house attached to the SIDE of ours can be a nuisance in a way that would not be possible with a detached house. As it is - I would assume that you probably really DID buy only the visible bit of the house (ie not the basement) - BUT you paid a house price for it - when, in actual fact, it would have been more appropriate to have paid a maisonette price for it (ie some thousands of £s less). Obviously in a maisonette - then one has no control whatsoever as to what the neighbour in the flat beneath (basement beneath in your case....) gets up to. Today - they are using your basement as a utility room - tomorrow they might decide to use it as a music room and then you would have noise coming up through your ground floor that you KNEW you wouldnt get - ie because you had bought a house as far as you knew.

The only plus side to this is - if they really DO own your basement then they also presumably own the foundations your house is built on and so if there are any problems ever with those foundations then presumably it would be down to them to deal with/pay for them? Thats a whole other legal question you have to get answered - ie what happens if there are any other problems with your house foundations ever? Who would pay?

I do think that IF ever your house has structural problems in the lower level - then you could be in for one BIG headache with your insurance company in getting them to pay to put things right - AND problems with foundations are EXTREMELY expensive to deal with.

gauly

My understanding of the current rules on adverse possession are that if the land is registered you can no longer take possession without the registered owners permission - so you should be able to regain possession of the basement without any problems or bribes. This is from Wikipedia (which I know is not very reliable but does match what I was told when we realised part of our garden officially belonged to someone else!)

"The position of a registered landowner was significantly improved by the Land Registration Act of 2002. Where land is registered, the adverse possessor may apply to be registered as owner after 10 years of adverse possession and the Land Registry must give notice to the true owner of this application. This gives the landowner a statutory period of time [65 business days] to object to the adverse possession, and if they do so the application fails. Otherwise, the squatter becomes the registered properietor according to the land registry. If the true owner is unable to evict the squatter in the two years following the first application, the squatter can apply again after this period and be successful despite the opposition of the owner. The process effectively prevents the removal of a landowner's right to property without his knowledge, while ensuring squatters have a fair way exercising their rights."

The other weird thing about your case is that the previous owner has also been living on the same piece of registered land at the same time - so it is more that they and the neighbour were sharing it than he took possession of it. Obviously you will need to consult a lawyer because this sounds rather complicated.

gauly

... or maybe they could use the old law if they had possession for 12 years before 2002?? It's not clear to me but it does mean they have to go even further back showing how long they have been using the basement and it does have to be without permission of the land owner. It would be hard to believe/prove that a basement has been used for over 20 years without the land-owner noticing!

MatyMoo

Just curious, did it mention a basement on the Estate Agents particulars?

Were you even aware that your house, or other similar houses in the street had basements?

Assuming they are getting access from their basement in to your basement what do they use theirs for?

tbs624

HolyNougat - was this basement not visible from, say, the outside rear of the property when you viewed? As Matymoo
say, was it mentioned in the Property particulars?

You should get your solicitor to check the SPIF - specifically the Arrangements and rights part

Are there any other formal or informal arrangements which give someone else rights over your property?
(delete as applicable) no/ yes (please give details)

You may find it helpful to post over on Landlordzone - there are a couple of specialist lawyers post on there.

There is also Richard Webster on this Board