Advice on Land Registry and Prescriptive Easement.

chineplate

[FONT=&quot]I've been gaining access to my house now for over 30 years along a private track, the owner is unknown. My house is registered with the LR however, the track isn't. I understand that as I've used the track openly and without permission for all this time I can now claim a prescriptive easement for access. I've had a look at the Land Registry web site and the application process seems straight forward. My question is; has anyone else on the forum any experience of applying for an easement, are there any pitfalls to avoid and importantly, how long does the process take, bearing in mind that there is no owner of the servient land to inform. Thanks for any help.[/FONT]

G_M

Look forward to hearing how you get on.

Please keep us informed.....

(sorry - no experience so can't help beyond pointing you at the LR guides/forms which you've obviously already found)

Land_Registry

chineplate - from a registration perspective only it is likely to take a few weeks at least to complete as such applications are not routine and of course rely on a unique set of circumstances which have to be considered on merit by a senior officer.

The application will after all simply consider your claim and the evidence you submit as there is no registered owner to contact to seek their own view.

You may also find more experience/thoughts on this subject on another forum known as Garden Law

If you have been using it for 30 years then the speed with which the registration is considered/completed may not be important. We will still process the application as we always would but any delay tends to arise from the need for referral to a senior officer as this type of application is not your everyday purchase/mortgage application
But I do understand it can be helpful to know how long such things might take simply for awareness reasons.

chineplate

LRR, thanks for the thorough reply.

Looking at it from another angle, would I be correct in assuming that leaving the easement claim unregistered does not remove my right to private access. Of course, the advantage of registering the easement makes anyone trying to register the servient land aware of my claim.

As I will shortly be selling my house it may be appropriate to leave the easement registration to the new owner to complete during title transfer, are there any issues with taking this avenue.

G_M

Do you already have a buyer? If not, I'd have thought having the easement registered would make finding a buyer much easier.

Nowadays people (and their mortgage lenders) are increasingly cautious about taking on properties with outstanding issues, or informal arrangements.....

Hetty17

I second the Land Registry Representative's suggestion of the gardenlaw website, for helpful and knowledgeable advice. (garden law dot co dot uk)

I've not had need to post there, but find it an interesting forum for finding out about Rights of Way, boundary issues, and the like.

matttye

chineplate wrote: »

LRR, thanks for the thorough reply.

Looking at it from another angle, would I be correct in assuming that leaving the easement claim unregistered does not remove my right to private access. Of course, the advantage of registering the easement makes anyone trying to register the servient land aware of my claim.

As I will shortly be selling my house it may be appropriate to leave the easement registration to the new owner to complete during title transfer, are there any issues with taking this avenue.

As far as I'm aware you have to register the easement, as it is your right. You have to have been using the right for 20 years immediately preceding the claim I think.

Land_Registry

chineplate wrote: »

Looking at it from another angle, would I be correct in assuming that leaving the easement claim unregistered does not remove my right to private access. Of course, the advantage of registering the easement makes anyone trying to register the servient land aware of my claim.

As I will shortly be selling my house it may be appropriate to leave the easement registration to the new owner to complete during title transfer, are there any issues with taking this avenue.

When you apply to register a claim over unregistered land we can only note that claim on your title. It would be unusual for anyone seeking to register the unregistered land to check adjoining titles for such claims before doing so but never say never in conveyancing terms.

Naturally you carry on exercising that right whether it is registered or not. And in doing so that will often alert any owner anyway although it is over land and not a property so less likely perhaps that they have noticed.

You buyer may of course be quite happy to proceed and accept whatever evidence you provide around your claimed right. They may then decide to apply to have it registered. The key is in the facts you provide and that applies both for us and the buyer. Whether there are any issues with leaving it to the buyer to register is really up to the buyer and G_M will have more experience of this as posted

silvercar

Any potential buyer is going to be wary of an application in progress. I would think that "although not registered, we have had no problem with this access for 30 years" would be preferable to "we know the deeds are deficient and are trying to sort it out."

moneyistooshorttomention

silvercar wrote: »

Any potential buyer is going to be wary of an application in progress. I would think that "although not registered, we have had no problem with this access for 30 years" would be preferable to "we know the deeds are deficient and are trying to sort it out."

A logical point to make.

Which has now got me wondering just how long it would take to get these Deeds sorted out??

It would have been preferable to do so before putting the house up for sale - as it will cause some level of delay or other now.

But it does help to have things sorted beforehand and any buyer left to sort things afterwards wouldn't be very happy with OP (voice of experience time...).

chineplate

Thanks for the link to the Garden Law web site, plenty of reading there. The house isn't yet up for sale, leaving it until the summer. Advice is noted and I'll get the easement sorted beforehand. Thanks all.