Historic problem with Land Titles

JaneBH

We have recently been approached by a company claiming to be acting for the liquidators of the builders who built our house more than 30 years ago. They produced a Land Registry map they say indicates a tiny sliver of land, now part of our garden, was still owned by the builder and asking us to purchase the land. I have downloaded the title and map from the Land Registry, but this seems to differ from the BETA Mapsearch plan they sent us. The size scales are difficult to interpret and I am not able to get my own copy of this plan because the service is only available to businesses. Has anyone else come across this and would a piece of land like this be worth anything - it couldn't possibly be of any use to anyone? Is there a way to correct what was clearly an error in the land titles when the property was first built?

Many thanks for your help

Simby

apply for adverse possession if you have been using it for 30 years..... assuming someone else genuinely owns it and not you.

Mojisola

Is it accessible or useful to anyone else? If not, has the piece of land got any value at all?

davidmcn

The main value would be in sorting out the discrepancy so that future buyers/lenders don't query why somebody else owns part of your garden. As pointed out, claiming adverse possession might be a cheaper way of doing it. See a solicitor if you can't make sense of it.

G_M

What is around this land(apart from your garden? Does it adjoin the builders land? public land/highway? Another neighbour?

Who if anyone, could realistically access/use it other than you? If noone,it is prety valueless other than toavoid issues if/when ou come to sell.

You could simly ignore an rely on the Land Registry Plan to claim/show it is yours.

You could claim adverse possession. The issue here is that if the Land Registry consider that slice of land to be registered, they will write to the Registered Owner:
* if they consider that to be you, your application will probably be deemed pointless and fail
* if they consider that to be this Company, the Company will probably object to your application


you could negotiate a price tobuy [STRIKE]your own [/STRIKE] the land.



Or you could enter intoa protracted dispute with these chancers......

Mojisola

JaneBH wrote: »

They produced a Land Registry map they say indicates a tiny sliver of land, now part of our garden, was still owned by the builder and asking us to purchase the land.

A piece of our front garden still belongs to the estate that sold the land originally because they had plans to put in a road for further building. That building didn't happen and couldn't now because of other developments.

When we did a first registration at the LR, we did consider trying to buy it but, if the estate came and fenced it off, it wouldn't affect us at all so we've left it as it is.

It's worthless to them but there's no point us spending money just to have that small bit of garden on our deeds. As things stand, it is fenced off within our boundaries and has been for many years and no-one else has been able to access it - I suppose a future owner could try for adverse possession if it bothered them.