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Adverse Possession Unregistered Land 12 Years
lovehols
Posts: 214 Forumite
The house we have bought (get keys on Thursday already exchanged) has some unregistered land, its a disused railway and thre is an embankment in between two bridges. There is no railway any longer and it's just overgrown bramble. It's useless as it's not accessible unless you go from our house climbing up the embankment or from the farmers field the other side and land registry info confirms there is no registered owner. You'd of thought it would have been British Rail at the time but all enquiries have come back unregistered, and they have confirmed they do not own it.
From our house it's a steep embankment to the top of the railway area. We would like to tidy this up. We hope in time to do the adverse possession but do we actually need to fence anything or do anything. I mean do I take a photo when we get the keys with a date or me holding a paper up with the date
as the start of our 12 years, or just start counting the 12 years from then. It's the 'proof' bit. The previous owner died.
From our house it's a steep embankment to the top of the railway area. We would like to tidy this up. We hope in time to do the adverse possession but do we actually need to fence anything or do anything. I mean do I take a photo when we get the keys with a date or me holding a paper up with the date
as the start of our 12 years, or just start counting the 12 years from then. It's the 'proof' bit. The previous owner died. 0
Comments
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Don't know the answer, but a photo. with you holding a paper wouldn't prove anything, I could buy a 12 year old newspaper for a few quid.0
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Fence it off and use it. Look after it, do what you need to do to have posession.
Maybe even put in a privet hedge, they are fairly permanent looking, says you are taking the land and looking after it.0 -
You will have proof of the date you purchased the property (the transfer deed will be registered with the Land Registry).
As has been said, you then need to demonstrate that you have control of the land.
When you submit a registration for adverse possession you usually have to provide a statutory declaration stating how long you've owned the land, how you control the land etc. It's a criminal offence to lie on a statutory declaration.0 -
Although the land isn't registered, it probably does have an owner. A lot of railway land was sold off to private individuals in the 1960s.
You therefore run the risk of an owner spotting that you have fenced the land and tidied it. The farmer is one potential owner, because whoever was farming there 55 years ago would probably have had an interest in securing the land.0 -
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[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]You need to have exclusive possession of the land so the 1st think to do is fence it off so no-one else can access the land.[/FONT]0
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A lot of old railway land has passed into the hands of obscure government agencies.
Adverse possession wasn't designed as a way for people to steal unused land.Changing the world, one sarcastic comment at a time.0 -
but I'm curious how to provide the proof bit. I mean we could stick in some string and those plastic fence stakes I guess. 
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