Neighbour wants to by part of my land. odd boundary

HB58

OP, if you want to extend into your barn, how would this affect you and your neighbour, whoever owned the land?

TBeckett100

It seems to me that his home is unsaleable. It doesnt have a back garden and the door opens out onto other land (trespass issues). I would say this land will add a lot of value and sale-ability to his house.

carlsagen

I can't see how it would effect extending into the barn. the plans i have drawn up don't have any windows on that side. instead draw light from roof windows. I would request that he fenced off the area or allow me access to building maintenance.

Policing a new owner who put out patio furniture our washing would have to be discussed and policed through appropriate channels if they didn't remove. I think you are all right in that its worth nothing to me other than just 'owning' it.

I will suggest to the neighbour that we seek independent valuation, agree to allow access for maintenance. does not object to my barn plans, for him to build a small fence defining the boundary and that he pays the legals.

stator

Honestly the area is so useless to you I would give it away for virtually nothing and have a happy neighbour who 'owes you one'. He only needs to pay you enough to cover the legal fees.
Get your solicitor to add in as many covenants as you want:
No buildings
No fences over 2m
No farmyard animals
No bonfires
No compost heaps
No trees
Free access when you need to maintain the barn.
etc etc

carlsagen

TBeckett100 wrote: »

It seems to me that his home is unsaleable. It doesnt have a back garden and the door opens out onto other land (trespass issues). I would say this land will add a lot of value and sale-ability to his house.

Exactly, and what I'm hoping for.

stator

When he wants to sell you should buy him out if you can, then you can put in a large extension and seriously increase the value of the house, so that would be a reason not to sell him the land, if that was an option.

carlsagen

stator wrote: »

Honestly the area is so useless to you I would give it away for virtually nothing and have a happy neighbour who 'owes you one'. He only needs to pay you enough to cover the legal fees.
Get your solicitor to add in as many covenants as you want:
No buildings
No fences over 2m
No farmyard animals
No bonfires
No compost heaps
No trees
Free access when you need to maintain the barn.
etc etc

Free?. I don't think so. Id happily allow him access and to use it for the duration he lives there for free. but i wouldn't give it away.

carlsagen

stator wrote: »

When he wants to sell you should buy him out if you can, then you can put in a large extension and seriously increase the value of the house, so that would be a reason not to sell him the land, if that was an option.

I had thought this before. Not selling would artificially decrease his house value and allow me to purchase cheap.

I would then have two options. Sell it on with the land to make a sizeable profit. Or extend into the house.

Cost wise it would probably be cheaper over all to extend into the barn than buy his house and give me essentially the same size house (5 bed) if i purchased his.

I think this is much more cut throat than simply selling him the land to enable him to move on when he wants.

steeeb

He just wants to increase the saleability of his home.

Therefore the price he pays should be the value it'll increase his property by minus the legal fees and perhaps minus the fencing. He shouldn't make a profit from it, you're doing him a favour selling it him and allowing him to move on.

You're not a charity and therefore shouldn't give him it for free. And no point doing it to have a "good neighbor" since he clearly wants to move.

Include all kinds of covenants to prevent any mis-use of the land. And make sure this won't affect your extension as others have mentioned. Include rights of way also, just in case you'd need them in the future.

If you've got the money I'd:
- Offer to buy his house, mention you're considering knowing through rather than using up the barn. He should really go for this if he wants to move - as we've mentioned, buying your land won't make him any more money but rather increase saleability.. But if he has a concrete offer from you anyway then job done.
- Then, extend on to the barn as planned for your own property.
- Then either: Sell his property with additional land and make a tidy profit. Or extend his property out to be level with your barn and include some of the field to make it equally massive with some garden and add presumably a lot of value to it.

The fact you do nothing with it currently doesn't mean you won't ever do anything with it, or that something could not be done with it that would make you a tidy profit.

You've been a nice neighbor offering to let him use the land, but he's clearly leaving anyway and not interested in that.

You could alternatively buy his house and rent it out (assuming you have the money to) - that way you have full control over who your neighbour is and have an investment plus future flexibility to do what you want if there might be some future plans.

2nd_Time_Lucky

I would personally keep a small strip along the edge of the barn so i could repair etc without having to get someones else permission, this would also get around the party wall act if you ever wanted to develop the barn