These men have a cheek

BitterAndTwisted

OK so you and your husband have appropriated land belonging to someone else, even though you don't know who it is but you say you've tried to find out, and now you're getting all upset because you fear someone else might try and make a claim on it. How do you differ from those allegedly cheeky blokes in suits exactly? Apart from you squatting on it and they haven't. As far as I can see they are doing precisely what you and your husband did a while back. Perhaps they will get nowhere with it as well, just like you did.

You should have done something about this land a very long time ago if it's so precious to you and you didn't want to risk losing it.

princeofpounds

Whilst I agree with bitter and twisted, to a point, I also think that 28 years is perfectly long enough to have a sensible adverse possession claim. Whoever owns it isn't missing it clearly.

OP, you need to speak to a solicitor about adverse possession. You should be fine as long as you get it done properly, 28 years of occupying and using the land is more than long enough. As long as there aren't special circumstances we don't know about.

paddyrg

Just to play devils advocate a second - you've had use of some land you know isn't yours rent-free for 28yrs, and the rightful owners are the cheeky ones? ;-)

sgun

A friend of mine has claimed for adverse posession, she has about 3 months left to wait to see if an appeal is put in. When she first moved to her house there was a nominal rent on the garden (£15 year) and when the owner died his son stopped collecting it. After 10 years she put in her claim. This one is straightforward though as the son obviously doesn't want the land. Putting in the claim was easy, I believe she did it through the land registry for a small fee.

G_M

mrsyardbroom wrote: »

This afternoon ....two men in suits came along. They said they were from a local estate agent...... As soon as they found out that we didn't have a title deed they said......

We have had it fenced gated and locked for 28 years. It isn't registered and despite our best efforts we have never been able to trace the owner.

1st of - why on earth did you/hubby tell a couple of unknown 'estate agents' anything at all?
2nd is - what were you thinking/expecting 28 years ago when you expropriated someone else's land?

That aside, either make a claim yourself with the LR for adverse possession or pay a solicitor a few hundred to do it for you.

paddy's_mum

G_M wrote: »

when you expropriated someone else's land?

I think the choice of this word is a little on the hard side. People 'take over' land for all kinds of reasons, few of them deliberately dishonest or shabby.

The OP cleared some land that adjoined her own because it was an overgrown, neglected eyesore and that outlook bothered her. It is quite clear that she made many, and concerted, efforts to find the true owner. There was no attempt at concealed, shifty land-grabbing.

Time passes. Nobody steps forwards and says oi-get-orf-my-land. Everyone, including the laws of this land, accepts that ownership of the land has passed to the OP by virtue of time passing, their care of and occupation of the land. If she had handed in a stolen bicycle or shopping trolley that she'd found, and nobody stepped forward with a legitimate claim to it, the Police would give it back to her. As a result of that, she has an irrefutable claim to it even if the true owner turns up a year down the line.

Land is adversely possessed all the time either because the true owners don't care, don't know, or can't be bothered. Some land has no 'deeds' because it has been in one ownership since before compulsory land registration came about in the 80's or thereabouts.

The two men in suits have even less right to it since neither do they have supporting paperwork, nor evidence, nor occupation.

Werdnal

mrsyardbroom wrote: »

I think you'll find that owning the mineral rights on a person's land means that the person who owns the land isn't allowed to extract minerals from it. The company can't just evict people and start quarries, even if they own the property. There are many legal processes to go through before they can do anything and they must have planning permission.

I didn't actually mean they can throw someone out on the street and send in the bulldozers the next day - I know it takes planning permission, compulsory purchase orders etc before they can start. But it does happen, and I was only suggesting that perhaps the "men" your hubby spoke to were assessing the land that they have rights on, not that they actually own! If they suddenly have a need to access that land for some reason, they need to find out who legally owns it to approach that person, and as your hubby freely admitted that you don't "legally" own it, then they are bound to tell him that it is not yours!

Had your hubby said, "Oh yes, it belongs to us" they might have been a little more forthcoming in their explanation of what they wanted, but as he said the opposite, they had no obligation to tell him anything.

Who knows really, until you do some further investigation. I know our local clay company is disposing of a lot of property they own here, so they may be assessing their assets with a view to disposing of surplus land. Good luck, I hope you get to the bottom of it.

G_M

paddy's_mum wrote: »

I think the choice of this word is a little on the hard side. People 'take over' land for all kinds of reasons, few of them deliberately dishonest or shabby.

The OP cleared some land that adjoined her own because it was an overgrown, neglected eyesore and that outlook bothered her. It is quite clear that she made many, and concerted, efforts to find the true owner. There was no attempt at concealed, shifty land-grabbing.

OK - OP I apologise.... for going off-topic.

paddy'smum - Although I concede the word is more usually associated with actons of the state or government than of individuals, 'expropriate' (as per my Longmans contemporary English) :

"to take away (something owned by another) often without payment."

The OP

had it fenced gated and locked for 28 years.

I meant no judgement by my question. I certainly never used words like 'dishonest' or 'shabby'!

I simply wondered (and asked) what the OP had in mind 28 years ago, bearing in mind that
a) he intended to use the land and did so, and
b) knew it was not his land, but, by definition, someone else's?

mrsyardbroom

How do you differ from those allegedly cheeky blokes in suits exactly? Apart from you squatting on it and they haven't. As far as I can see they are doing precisely what you and your husband did a while back. Perhaps they will get nowhere with it as well, just like you did.

I'll tell you how we differ shall I? The men in suits simply assumed that the land belongs to the clay company. Why? They haven't bothered to ask everyone who lives in the immediate area or contact the adjoining land owners as we did. They haven't done a commons search or contacted the land registry as we did. They put no effort in at all as we did.
What we have done is to spend hours of our time researching documents and making extensive enquiries before doing anything about using the land. Only when we were satisified that no-one wanted to lay claim to it did we start to use it. We didn't just walk past it one day and say, "We'll have that" as the men in suits did. What happened was that local people who knew we wanted a bit of extra garden suggested that we should take it over and use it.
We have rescued a piece of land that was covered in scrub and rubbish and was a complete eyesore and spent years of back breaking work clearing it and spending money on fencing and maintenance. It cost us £200 last year to have a tree surgeon make the trees safe. The clay company do not and never have owned the land or any of the adjoining land. They have simply sent two men from an estate agent to walk around the village and identify any land that may possibly be theirs. I thought it was a cheek to say that if it doesn't belong to us then it automatically belongs to the clay company. Why should it? They have tried this on with other people and got nowhere.
That is how we differ. Just one other thing. We want the land for our personal use. Not to make a profit or to develop and make money. We're not wealthy people who can afford solicitors at £150 an hour! We're a couple of old age pensioners living a quiet life in a tiny village. If we haven't done anything about claiming the land it was because there no need. No-one else wanted it and people were glad to see the land being renovated and made use of.
I had hoped that people on this forum would be helpful but I feel as if I'm being accused of being a land grabbing opportunist looking to make a quick buck.

Richard_Webster

The Land Registry are helpful and you can download the relevant forms to apply for adverse possession. They will tell you which ones you will need - and there are guides on how to do these things.

You will have to show how your use of the land was enough to be obvious to someone else so that if the "real" owner came along he could see someone else was using it and could then decide whether or not to do anything about it.

You fenced it, but what else did you do - was it used for grazing - did you grow things on it?