Boundary issues

Bpl_2

Me and my partner are first time buyers and had our offer on a property accepted mid-November. All the searches have come back about a month ago but we we have discovered that the house use to have a shared pathway which is now used as off road parking on the property.

Under the land registry our part of the shared pathway is not marked as belonging to the property. Our conveyancer has asked their conveyancer to ask them to amend the land registry or make an agreement with the neighbour about the boundaries but the sellers have point blank refused. Therefore our conveyensor is refusing to progress with the sale until the boundaries are sorted, so we have been at a standstill with it for the past month.

We currently rent but our lease ran out on the 19th jan, our landlord is very understanding but I'm finding this situation frustrating and I'm wondering if there is anything we can do. Any advice useful.

Tixy

If the sellers have refused to try to change their title plan then your options are to either proceed with the purchase of the actual piece of land that the do own (renegotiating a lower price?) or decide to walk away from the purchase.

moneyistooshorttomention

Am wondering whether there is a bit of a difference of opinion between your seller and the neighbour as to your house owning your side of the shared pathway.

Well, I guess you have nothing to lose by dropping in on the neighbour and asking them for their "version of events" as to who owns what exactly there.

It may be that the neighbour will lie and say they own land they don't (voice of experience time, as its been rather a battle in my current house to get the neighbour to stick to their own land and stop trying to wrongly claim that a bit of mine isn't mine). So the neighbour may or may not tell you the truth of the matter, but at least you'll get their "take" on the matter, which may help you with deciding how best to proceed.

Bpl_2

The shared path has now been split with a fence being placed down the middle. In the fixture and fittings book thing it states that there is documentation to support the path being split equal but that doesnt appear to have been produced. Otherwise there wouldnt be an issue.

Doozergirl

If there's no documentation then it's still a shared path.. Which the respective owners have agreed between them to split by means of a fence. If everyone can agree that it is shared, then there shouldn't be a problem unless the whole point of this sale is that you must have the piece of paper to say that half of the shared path is yours, and half of it isn't.

Seems like a storm in a teacup. If it is shared, then you clearly have the right to park on it.

If the present owner doesn't want to go for title, then you could do it at some point. Are you happy to proceed on the basis that on paper it is shared but on the ground it isn't? If you are, tell the solicitor to carry on. If you aren't then you'll have to pull out.

mrschaucer

You could spend a couple of pounds downloading next door's deeds from the land registry and see if this bit of land is shown as exclusively theirs on their deeds? Would give you a bit more of a handle on whether it is in fact theirs and they are just being generous in letting someone else use it?

Land_Registry

As others have mentioned the question is presumably do you want to own part of the shared pathway, now used for parking, and/or do you need it as access to the property - if it's the latter then it will be important if you don't have any rights across it.

As mrschaucer posts checking what is registered and to whom as well as what rights (or not) exist re the shared pathway will influence any decisions to be made.

Amending the registered title is only likely to happen if it can be shown that an error has been made - whether that is the case is likely to depend on what is contained in the deeds whereby the original builder sold the properties. If the pathway was shared then this suggests the same builder was involved. The title(s) should confirm this and give you some idea as to what each property owns and what rights they might have - your solicitor will have checked this already so some clarity around what they show might help here?

The title plans will show the general boundaries whilst the register may refer to the original deed as mentioned although that would only be available by post. Your solicitor will though already have these details