Contacting owner of land

Pepper22

Hello,

About 10 months ago I bought a flat in London, which I'll call: 1 Main Street, London

The flat is one of four in a house - around 5 years ago the owners of the four flats in the building bought the freehold, which we now own a quarter of. However it appears that the previous owner of the freehold (say John Smith) owned a larger plot and retained a piece of land behind the house with access via our driveway.

The piece of land at the back has enough space for around 3 cars & also has an overgrown (also full of rats and collapsing) brick garage.

As far as I can tell John Smith has not used the land at all (definitely not since we've moved in) - and it's currently being used as parking by ourselves (and others in our building).

I'd be interested in purchasing / obtaining the piece of land & have bought the plan from the registry which lists the details as:

Address: Land south of 1 Main Street, London
Owner: John Smith of 1 Main Street, London (i.e. our address)

What's my best course of action? / How do I contact the owner if the only address we have is our address?

Thanks & sorry for long post!

da_rule

Did you buy your flat off of John Smith?


If so, your solicitors may have an address for him?


Do you ever get any post addressed to him? Or does it appear he has set up a mail re-direct?

Pepper22

Thanks for your reply - no we didn't buy out flat from John Smith. I'm not sure if he ever lived in one of the four flats here, but certainly not in the last 6 years (the freehold is owned by a company set up 6 years ago with each of the four flat owners being a director & he's never been a director according to companies house).

We've never had any post addressed to him either.

G_M

It's not uncommon for people to leave their contact address at LR as the address of the property they own (or in this case owned).

So the LR is unlikely to be much use as a source.

RM redirection may be in place so try wriing to the owner at 1, Main Street, but equally it could well be that e no longer uses hat address for anything, simply forot to update the LR, so does think redirection is necessary.

Conveyancing solicitor? Neighbours who know/knew him? Or try one of the companies that specialise in finding people......

Another option is to simply wait 10 years and then claim adverse possession, LR will then attempt to locate him, with or without success.

da_rule

You could obtain the original conveyance for the freehold sale (it'll either be a TP1 or TR1), the land registry may have it stored against the freehold title document as a document held on file. This may have a different address on it or the name of the solicitors who acted for him, who may be able to forward something on.

Pepper22

Thanks - I did think about adverse possession although 10 years is a long time to wait! Does the 10 years start from when we moved in? Or if the people we bought our flat from were also using the space do we "inherit" their 5 years of use?

Pepper22

Thanks - I think I saw a copy of this when we bought the flat. I'll dig it out - I don't recall seeing another address but there may be solicitor information

da_rule

The 10 years can include 'predecessors in title', you'd need a statement of truth from the others.

G_M

Pepper22 wrote: »

Thanks - I did think about adverse possession although 10 years is a long time to wait! Does the 10 years start from when we moved in? Or if the people we bought our flat from were also using the space do we "inherit" their 5 years of use?

Another option is to simply wait 10 years and then claim adverse possession,

click the link!