Land ownership

Camaro3

Hi all, I'm after some advice. Could anyone tell me who is responsible for chacking land ownership when buying a property. I ask because after buying my house, I have been informed that some of the land within my borders belongs to the local council.

Bantex_2

Land registry and title documents. What does your solicitor say?

Camaro3

Bantex wrote: »

Land registry and title documents. What does your solicitor say?

I've been to the land registry, and yes a small parcel of land contained within my boundary is registered to the local council.
When I went to look at the house, I assumed I was buying everything within the boundary. I now want to sell the house, but my solicitor says that I can only sell what I own.

Bantex_2

Camaro3 wrote: »

I've been to the land registry, and yes a small parcel of land contained within my boundary is registered to the local council.
When I went to look at the house, I assumed I was buying everything within the boundary. I now want to sell the house, but my solicitor says that I can only sell what I own.

What has the solicitor that arranged your purchase got to say? You may be able to sue him if he failed to notice this.

Mattygroves2

Camaro3 wrote: »

I've been to the land registry, and yes a small parcel of land contained within my boundary is registered to the local council.
When I went to look at the house, I assumed I was buying everything within the boundary. I now want to sell the house, but my solicitor says that I can only sell what I own.

Did you check the plan your solicitor sent you when you bought the property ? They usually send you a plan with the area you are buying marked along with small T marks to indicate which boundaries you were responsible for. If the didn't send you one when you bought then you may have a case against the solicitor who acted for you when you bought.

Likewise if the one you were sent included the bit that isn't yours then something has gone wrong in the transfer process and you may have a case.

If you were sent one but didn't check it or feed back that the boundaries marked weren't what you were expecting then it's down to you. The solicitor doesn't visit the property so relies on you to check the physical features / details are correct.

antrobus

Bantex wrote: »

What has the solicitor that arranged your purchase got to say? You may be able to sue him if he failed to notice this.

May, yes.

Of course, the solicitor that 'arranged' the purchase would likely not have visited the house, and would therefore have made no assumptions about what was included within the boundary. They might not have been aware of the fact that their client had made an assumption.

antrobus

Mattygroves2 wrote: »

Did you check the plan your solicitor sent you when you bought the property ? .....

That's the kind of thing I was thinking of.

Certainly the CML Lenders' Handbook states that solicitors "should check with the borrower that the plan or the description accords with the borrower's understanding of the extent of the property to be mortgaged to us."

Of course, it can be quite easy to miscontrue the exact boundaries if you are comparing a plan with what you remember seeing.

Camaro3

The purchase was over 6 years ago, so cannot remember about plans. The boundary was fenced in, so I "assumed" all land was owned by previous owner.
We did not find out about land issue untill we had a grant to build an extension due to wife's illness. Council rang, said land belonged to them & we would not get planning permission unless we agreed to buy.
We agreed to buy land, council passed planning but never followed up buying of land even though we kept asking.
Ironically, when we went back to council, they upped price by 10 times stating they did not realise we were going to build on it.
So now I am looking at seeing a different solicitor.

G_M

If you did the conveyancing, then the responsibility was yours.

If you employed a solicitor or licenced conveyancer, then he/she should have checked.

However he/she is unlikely to have visited the property (and is not expected to) so cannot know what the physical boundary looks like. He can only look at the Title Plan (a small scale map).

Normally he will send you the Plan and ask you to check that it matches what you are expecting to own. It is then up to you to compare what is shown on the Plan with what you see yourself (ie where the physical boundaries are).

If the Plan looks different to the actual layout, you should have raised that with your solicitor.

I doubt that you have a case against your solicitor. Or the Land Registry. Or the seller.

Unless they deliberately misled you.

You might have tried a claim for adverse possession, but I suspect that by negotiating a purchase with the council you have implicitly accepted their ownership.

Camaro3

Thanks everyone for the advice, will see a solicitor & see what I can do about it.