Land advice

Paulg1986

Wish i could make a trip to Australia, think i am going to just go with the idea fencing it off using it with some stock and if anything materialises then so be it.

moneyistooshorttomention

You'd be covering your backside if you could prove that you've done x, y, z to find the owner in order to make an offer on it.

If they turn up and throw 40 fits then you'd have nothing to "cover your backside" because you wouldnt have tried to find them. At which point - you lose the land - as they'd refuse to sell it to you anyway.

If you had at least tried (and kept proof you'd tried) you might stand a chance of them letting you buy the land.

Paulg1986

Well i have tried, i drove 150 mile to his last known address but it was a dead end the new owner said he went back to Australia but they dont know where in Australia he went too, where would i even start with that one? As fair enough dealing with finding him here but in Australia.

bouicca21

If you can find the name of the nephew than it probably won't be as difficult as you think to find him - or his heirs, if he's dead. Another possibility is to investigate whether the derelict building is empty. If furniture and other possessions were left then you might find they yield information.

Brock_and_Roll

A few years ago I struggled to find a long lost relative in Australia with a common name. I then employed a tracing agent in Oz at a very modest cost and they managed to find the old boy in just a couple of days - and this was before the advent of mass social media etc

stator

Ask for the name of the solicitor who dealt with the sale of the address you have. They won't give you his new address but they might forward a letter or agree to contact him for you.

G_M

Is the river navigable?

getmore4less

There is a plot of land in out town nearly 2 acre that is a prime development site, unregistered as far as I can tell.

It has a weird history as it was a well known landmark in the town when in use.
From what I can tell the council have grabbed it through adverse possession or some one else has. The notice went up last year with the council name on it

The property was abandoned by the occupiers(also probably the owners) around 2007, an arm of a large financial institution shortly after planning permission went in for a new public building to free up a building in the town center.
This all got passed and approved before 2010, the site was boarded off with 8ft fence and locked the council have repaired the fence over time and at some point the existing building was removed it is now a jungle with a lot of very large plants and brambles.

Modifications to the planning have happened(no mention of owners on the applications) as recent as 2012 and the time limits extended but nothing seems to be happening.

it is almost as if the company that owned it have forgotten they owned probably through people moving on, as it has now dissolved there is no one left to defend any claim
The council approved the plans and just sat waiting for 15 years to make the grab.

I need to track down where the adverse possession claims are on-line to do the next bit of research.

getmore4less

Paulg1986 wrote: »

Hello, i have ordered a will and probate for his uncle and hopefully i can find out the nephews name or something i can use to get more information, i should receive it today. I know most of his uncles family are originally from Australia

Paulg1986 wrote: »

Hello everyone

Well yesterday i have had some news, i traced down a will and probate for the former owner and in reading this i found out that all of his estate passed on to the nephew, but this is the funny part carrying on reading it did not identify and property into the will or anything and at the end of the will the estate was valued at a mere 61,000 which i find extremely strange as my family friends home is valued at 400,000+ all it says in his will is that the nephew inherits the residue what is left after all his debts are payed which i think is the care home expense, and his nephew has moved back to Australia as ive been to his last known address.

Any ideas?

Whoever the grant was issued to is the person that is responsible for the property of the deceased.

Good chance they never new the property existed if not the nephew.

paddy's_mum

I cannot see that adverse possession is in any way 'stealing'. Some years ago, my children spotted a dropped-from-a-back-pocket roll of banknotes totalling £60, handed it into the police and as it was never claimed, it was returned to them.

Similarly, I once found a bicycle stuffed into a thick hedge (probably nicked by someone who didn't fancy a long walk home) which was eventually given to me by the Police as unclaimed lost property and which I sold to a local lad for a tenner. Were we thieves?

I don't think so and in the case in this thread, if the uncle and/or his nephew failed for whatever reason to communicate or ascertain basic facts about property/inheritance/probate, it leaves such items (in my view) as fair game to anyone with the wit to perhaps avail themselves of a rare opportunity.