Buying a section of neighbours garden.

whatamigonnado

Hi, we have had our house on the market for almost a year, a few viewers, nobody biting, reduced the price last month and have had 2 viewers since -once of them tonight - Sod's Law!

Me and OH had a talk over the weekend and we have decided to leave it on the market until the one year is up (last week in September) and then take it off the market.

Our garden is quite small, and the garden of the house that runs along the back of ours is about 2.5 times the size of ours. It is a rented house and seems to have new tenants every 6 months or so. None of the tenants seem to take an interest in the garden.

OH came up with the idea of asking the LL/owner if he wanted to sell us a bit of the garden, to double ours in size. He seems quite keen and has asked us to email him with our details, the details of our Solicitor (don't have one as yet) and the details of our offer with proof of funds.

We will obviously want to do it legally and get it added by the land registry but we are unsure what to do next.

It is only a tentative enquiry and it threw me a bit when he quickly started talking solicitors and proof of funds.

Now, how much to offer?

The patch of garden is (from what we can tell looking over the fence / out of the bedroom window!) is approximately 24 ft x 18 ft, so tiny really, but would make a difference to us. There is no access to it other than through the back of the current property (obviously if we bought it we would just put up fencing to cut off their access and give it to us. We are in Salford, Manchester, so not a pretty little village or anything like that.

My initial thought is that we would be happy to pay around £1000 for the bit of garden, but have no idea if this is being ridiculous or not.

Anybody have any idea at all?

Thanks in advance.

x

ValHaller

Why do you want to buy it? You may think the answer is obvious but I can think of 2 very different reasons

• To make the property more attractive to sell
• To make the property more attractive to stay in longer

Beware that buying this land may not solve your problem if it is to help you to sell. If the viewers are put off by the tenants next door, the larger garden will put your property closer ....

whatamigonnado

ValHaller wrote: »

Why do you want to buy it? You may think the answer is obvious but I can think of 2 very different reasons

• To make the property more attractive to sell
• To make the property more attractive to stay in longer

Beware that buying this land may not solve your problem if it is to help you to sell. If the viewers are put off by the tenants next door, the larger garden will put your property closer ....

Hi, we would want to buy it only if we were staying here, to make the property more attractive to stay in longer. We have lived here for 24 years and I am more than happy to stay; my husband would have "liked" to have moved, but we are not desperate. We have 2 young grandsons (our children are older now) who stay here often, and it would be nice for them to have a bit of a bigger space, room enough to play football on.

Thank you.

x

ognum

frankly £1k is nothing and if you offered me that I would laugh and walk away! Sorry but I would!

How much will this piece of land increase the value of your home? I would want at least£10k if not more.

But beware it is not that simple, if he has a mortgage he needs the building society's permission to do this, you will need to change land registry details for both houses so IMO you should get the land professionally surveyed.

You then both need solicitors to do this so it could cost 4-5k in fees.

Good luck

whatamigonnado

ognum wrote: »

frankly £1k is nothing and if you offered me that I would laugh and walk away! Sorry but I would!

How much will this piece of land increase the value of your home? I would want at least£10k if not more.

But beware it is not that simple, if he has a mortgage he needs the building society's permission to do this, you will need to change land registry details for both houses so IMO you should get the land professionally surveyed.

You then both need solicitors to do this so it could cost 4-5k in fees.

Good luck

Thank you. For £10,000 I would also laugh and walk away!! The house is only up for sale for £100,000, and theirs is run down and probably not worth more than £85000,

The land probably wouldn't increase the value of our home at all, as I said, we have a small garden anyway, and this would just make it more pleasant. We don't desperately want or need the patch of garden, it was just an idea. Seriously, if I was asked to pay anywhere near £10,000 it would be a no go.

Thanks for the reply anyway.

x

Old_Git

I think you need to offer £1000 plus pay the sellers legal fees otherwise its not worth it .

SG27

I heard somewhere that he average cost of an acre of non building land is around £25,000. Probably depends on where it is and how much the owner is wiling to sell it for I suppose.

ValHaller

whatamigonnado wrote: »

Hi, we would want to buy it only if we were staying here, to make the property more attractive to stay in longer. We have lived here for 24 years and I am more than happy to stay; my husband would have "liked" to have moved, but we are not desperate. We have 2 young grandsons (our children are older now) who stay here often, and it would be nice for them to have a bit of a bigger space, room enough to play football on.

In this sort of situation, it is normal for buyer to pay both sides' legal fees, so you are probably looking at an overall expenditure of £2500. I do wonder if the neighbour will be willing to proceed - he may have a mortgage which involves getting the lender to agree, which will possibly cost him a few hundred for a survey, which would not be included in the legal fees you would pay.

Personally, I might look at a deal being struck at £2000 and open with an offer of £1000 plus legal fees. Beware if you do this, do not send proof of funds - state that proof of funds will be provided once a deal is agreed. If he sees an account statement with £8000, he will set about extracting the lot from you.

I think this will be a difficult deal to implement - I can see a deal being almost agreed and everything being kicked into the long grass to the extent that you wished you just got on with selling the house.

Davesnave

Rather a lot of supposition here, so I won't add to it, but I can tell you I sold 4 pieces of land similar in size and in the same sort of position last year.

It was in a more expensive area than yours, but on the down-side there was a fair amount of clearance for the purchasers to do and basic landscaping, like fencing, also came into their cost calculations.

The purchasers had a survey/valuation done, which was a complete waste of time, as nowhere did address the uplift in value to their homes. I therefore told them I was ignoring it, which didn't go down well, but a few months later they came back with an offer 60% higher again than the valuation.

I estimate that with legal fees paid for both sides, each plot cost the purchasers around £8000. As your house is worth much less than theirs, it probably wouldn't be sensible to envisage spending a total of more than £3.5k.

However, doubling the size of a small garden can make a house much more pleasant to live in, particularly if the garden faces north, as was the situation where I sold. It also can improve the possibilities for extension, as you are not allowed to cover more than 50% of your garden area, and with terraced property that can be tight!

Good luck.:)