Selling off part of garden

2tired2tango

My mums garden is roughly 10.5 meters x 34 meters. we have been approached by a neighbour that would like to buy roughly 2/3 of it 22x10 meters.
The land is totally landlocked no road access and no chance of building on it.
He has offered to pay £2000 plus all legal fee's and take care of everything
Does this seem like a fair price

[Deleted User]

£2000? not a chance

2tired2tango

What would be a fair price

davidmcn

Depends how much it affects the value of your mum's house - and you haven't given us many clues to go on! But if she ends up with a garden much smaller than everyone else in the street that is likely to make the house less attractive to buyers.

gazzak_2

Personally I'd start at £1000 per square meter.

A_Nice_Englishman

When you say there's no chance of building on it, I take it you mean there's no chance of building a separate property requiring its own access. What about an extension or outbuilding?

Even if the neighbour (says he) has no intention to develop the land now he might change his mind, or a future owner may decide to.

eddddy

If your mum has a mortgage, she will need the lender's consent.

Things to consider when deciding a fair price include:

• How much will it decrease the value of your mum's house
• How much will it increase the value of the neighbour's house

You could try asking some friendly local EAs for their opinions on this - you might have most luck with 'traditional' RICS affiliated EAs, rather than national chains.

Whilst your mum might not be interested in having a sizable garden, she might find it harder to sell, because the buyers want a sizable garden.

(And £2k does sound like a tiny amount - even if it's a low cost area.)

2tired2tango

no there is no road access at all and we have been told that building permission would never be granted on the garden, 50-60 years ago the lady who owned the house sold off the very bottom of the garden to the church and they built on it leaving the house landlocked, the only access is about 150 yards up an alleywayso you couldnt get any machinery there,
The house is a grade 2 listed building that has fallen into disrepair so you cant touch the front of the house and there is no room to extend out the back so its probably worth about 150k
the neighbour lives off at the bottom to the right so he will not have any road access either, he just wants some land so his kids can play safely as its not near to any roads

PasturesNew

It's landlocked... but what's the potential of that neighbour then demolishing their house and putting 10 new ones on the total plot? If that weren't landlocked you could fit four 4-bed houses on just that bit....

£2k is too cheap in any case. 35' x 110' or so in old money. That's a lot of extra garden.

2tired2tango

No, no mortgage she owns the house, and it wouldnt increase the value of the neighbours property as explained above
£ 2000 with all legal fee's paid so she will not pay anything and she doesnt want the hassle of the garden anymore its just looking like a right mess with everything overgrown

A_Nice_Englishman

If you do decide to go ahead I'd get a surveyor to give an independent valuation and draw up plans of the two properties and the transferred land for the Land Registry. You'll both need to engage solicitors too.

I swapped some land with my neighbour at a previous property and we, stupidly, didn't do this at the time. This caused delay when I sold my property a few years later.