Adverse possession

Rosierees123

Hi help please we have maintained and used as our own a small piece of land attached to our garden for the last 16 years and it has always been fenced off in favour of our garden we put a fence up 16 yrs ago and our neighbours who are council tenants want to now buy their house and want the land back as on land reg it says it belongs to their council house but land reg have accepted our application and have as yet had no objection from the council there only a few more weeks to go Untill they can object , yesterday the tenants took down our 16 old fence and destroyed our beautuful old trees and veg crops and our chickens are running every where !!! Help and advice please have got police involved bit they were a bit wary of boundary disputes even though our fence and crops are damaged in the land in question

Clutterfree

We had a similar thing happen to our fence.
Tell the police you want them charged with criminal damage to your property.
Our neighbour was arrested (a few weeks later) and he accepted a caution.
We then took him to the small claims court and the judge ordered him to pay us for replacing the fence plus all the plants he'd pulled out.

As for the boundary dispute, that's a whole other ball game...

Good luck.

G_M

The land is not (yet) yours.

The fence and chickens etc, are.

Criminal damage.

If the owner of the land, or their tenants, wanted to remove your posessions from their land, they should have either

* asked you to remove, and/or
* removed but carefully returned them to you

Fingers crossed your AP claim goes through before the tenants Complete their purchase........

moneyistooshorttomention

G_M wrote: »

Fingers crossed your AP claim goes through before the tenants Complete their purchase........

I wouldnt think that would make any difference.

The owner of the land is currently the Council.

The new owner of the land will be the new owner of the house (ie as its obviously part of their garden - or wouldnt have been registered to their house in the first place).

So the ownership passes from current owner to next owner. Either way - it goes straight past OP's nose - as they arent the owner of it.

I would say the only gripe OP has is if the new owner of the land hasnt returned their fence to them in the same condition it was in whilst sitting there in their garden and it's probably as well to "write it off" - as OP has had the use of their garden rent-free for some time.

moneyistooshorttomention

At a very practical level - is it worth trying to steal that bit of their garden off them?

You say they've already "destroyed" trees and vegetables. They probably wouldnt stop there - but would continue to "destroy" your property if it was on their land (even if it were somehow to end up getting given to you for free).

Rosierees123

Thanks but they can't buy Untill the adverse possession is resolved so it's very complicated

Rosierees123

The council have four weeks to object

theartfullodger

Fascinating:

Some won't be keen on the tenants getting a huge bung from tax-payers under right-to-buy....

Some won't be keen on OP acquiring a state owned asset for no return to the tax-payer....

I'm in both camps... Either way the tax-payer ain't coming out of this particularly well...

Please keep us informed of progress - all varieties, including progress in a reverse direction.

Cheers all!

G_M

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I wouldnt think that would make any difference.

The owner of the land is currently the Council.

The new owner of the land will be the new owner of the house (ie as its obviously part of their garden - or wouldnt have been registered to their house in the first place).

my think was that, it seems, the council is not responding/objecting to the AP claim, so it is likely to go through.

but if the tenants become the owners before that, they are likely to object I imagine.

However if the sale to the tenants cannot Complete before the AP claim is resolved, it becomes a moot point.

Rosierees123

The part of garden we use has not been attached or used by the council property for 25 yrs and seen various tenants come and go

Rosierees123

They can't proceed to buy Untill the adverse possession is sorted so they shouldn't have done it