Right to Buy - entire plot not included?

FlatFour

Hey all,


Hoping for some advice here. My parents are in the early stages of the Right to Buy process for their council house and I will be helping them out financially with this.



We got the evaluation letter recently (Friday) and were surprised to see that they've excluded a portion of the garden area that's been part of the property since the mid 1970's.


Basically, over 40 years ago, there was an additional strip of land, owned by the council, that ran down the back of their house and two of the neighbours. They, along with the neighbours, were asked to take this disused land on back in the 70's and it was included in the rent. It basically added about four metres to the bottom of the gardens, but was overgrown. The neighbours at the time chose to extend their gardens into this space as did my parents. This all happened when they moved in, so it's always been part of the garden, and always been in use, I'm just adding the extra information for context.



My dad built some small sheds for Tools and bikes and eventually some off-road parking space. This was checked and approved by the council and has been in place for many many years.


The neighbours bought their houses quite a few years ago now, and the entire plot was included as it'd been part of their tenancy, like my parents, for many years by this point. No problems.



When the RTB process started, we had people visit, and showed them around so they could see the plot. We thought it a little odd when they said "We see you've been tenants since 1986" which is incorrect, my parents moved here in 1975. We queried this and they said their records only go back to 1986 when they took over. Basically, originally it was the District Council but it changed to Housing Association in 1986. It appears they have no records from before this time, which is rather poor.



My parents have been renting for over 40 years, but the Housing Association seem unaware of what's included in the plot. Land my parents have been maintaining, and paying rent for, all these years. Our formal letter from them suggested the land "might" be available to buy at an extra cost, no clarity there. How can they just try to charge extra for part of the garden that's been part of the tenancy for over 40 years? They appear to have made a mistake.


Basically, they appear to be with holding a portion of the plot from us that's been in use for over 40 years, suggesting additional money might be needed. Not being funny but their asking price is already right at the high end of what we feel the place is worth. It's council and needs quite a bit of work doing to it that I'll not go into here. So, it's important that the price is fair and my parents get ALL the plot they've been paying rent on all this time.


We've drafted an email saying we're surprised and we do not consider their offer complete until they include ALL the garden that's been part of the property for over 40 years. I think that's fair.



Hopefully I'm being clear here and I've not confused things with details. In essence my parents have been tenants since 1975, yet part of the plot since that date seems to not be included. I've no doubt this is a mistake, however, we have no records to back up things that happened in the '70's! Though we do have the example of the two neighbours of course - both of which are still here.


This was a bit of an unexpected spanner in the works as I'm sure you all understand, when part of your garden you've been renting since 1975 is suddenly in doubt due to the councils / housing association's error. Hopefully they realise their mistake, though it's troubling that their letter suggests their not sure about what they've actually been renting to my parents for decades.



Has anyone else experienced something similar where the plot they're selling isn't the same as the one that's been rented for years? I'm a little dumbfounded by it all to be honest. They been so slow during this whole process, missing multiple deadlines by weeks and making other mistakes regarding appointments for surveys (aka, he just measured the rooms!) and the like, and now this. We started this process in March this year, and only got the offer letter on Friday.

lincroft1710

Pedantically the HA are correct, your parents have been tenants since 1986, HA tenants. If the HA claim the extra land is not included then this says they have the pre 1986 records which show the original garden plot. It seems that the council did not transfer this plot to your parents' house deeds (or whatever records they hold for the house).

It would still have been in order for the council (and subsequently the HA) to charge your parents extra rent for this land as they have been making use of it.

FlatFour

Yes, technically speaking they've been HA Tenants since HA took over of course. However, they thought my parents moved in in 1986, which is a little different. Also, it would be pre-1975 that the extra land wasn't included, so perhaps something simply never got updated, but did for the neighbours?



I'm not quite sure how to pursue this. It's a bit of a deal breaker for them if off road parking is lost as there's no room for cars otherwise. Plus all my dad's stuff in the sheds he's built. I do hope it's just a mistake As the neighbours bought their houses - including the full plot - long after HA had taken over, yet they had no issues securing the FULL plot as part of the purchase.


The thing is, as recently as the early 2000's they had HA people come out to "Inspect" a shed my dad built, yet there was never a query about the boundary and their was no problems with the structure. No need for planning as it was just a wooden shed, albeit built my my dad rather than assembled from flat pack.


The question is when was the mistake made, back in the 70's, when HA took over in 86 or more recently? They've never had issues with their use of the land, nor have the neighbours when they bought there's in the 90's, yet suddenly it's a problem.


Hopefully they can do some digging their side and find out what's going on.

FtbDreaming

If the 2 houses either side have their parts and theres no access to the peice of land from the rear then nobody is going to try and access it anyway are they?

As for the ha asking for the highest possible price. Mine did this too so i declined their offer. Id rather pay the going price elsewhere than over the odds for this wjen ive already spent thousands on it.

G_M

The extra land is presumably not included in the Land Registry Title for the property. Hence not being included in the sale.


Whether it is registered elsewhere you could check with the LR.

They, along with the neighbours, were asked to take this disused land on back in the 70's and it was included in the rent.

What documentation do they have? Was the rent adjusted or charged separately? Either way, it sounds like they could apply to buy it separately under RTB, or have it included in the existing application though this would increase the value of the property and hence increase the RTB cost.


An alternative would be to not buy it. From what you say, it is bordered on 2 sides by the neighbours, and on one side by your parents. What is on the far border? Can anyone else acces/use it?


If they buy the property without the extra land, who would know and who would stop them if they simply continued to use it?


Indeed, once they own the property, could they not apply to take ownership of it via 'adverse possession' since they've been using it for 40 years....

FlatFour

Considering a lot of this happened in the 70's there's not really any documentation dating from then. I will suggest they check with the neighbours though.


However, quite shockingly, we did find an official letter from the planning people when they inspected a Shed my dad had built - the one from early 2000's I mentioned earlier. The letter says it was built in accordance with the rules for a temporary structure - the sort of thing you'd typically expect for a garden shed. No mention of it being built outside the boundary or anything. I won't go into what triggered a simple bike shed needing to be "investigated" - it's really silly - but it was done and all approved. Note that this wasn't just a simple "looks alright to me" sort of inspection, but a proper check to ensure it'd been built within the rules...it really was just a simple wooden bike shed though. I think this would suggest that at the time - early 2000's - that part of the garden was indeed considered part of my parents plot. So that suggests something changed after that date, which is obviously an error.


HA have made an error somewhere and they need to investigate it first. I can speculate all I want on what might have happened, but at the end of the day this land has been part of my parents garden for over 40 years. Things have been checked like with the Bike Shed and no alarm bells have rung to suggest it's not part of their garden, until now.


No one else has access to this area, it's a seamless bit of the garden and doesn't look separate in any way. I don't even know how wide this bit of the garden is, as it's been part of the whole garden for as long as I've been alive.



I might pay the £3 fee to the land registry to check what it says, though I would suspect this is wrong as would this be exactly what the HA would be looking at? I will ask them exactly what boundary they have on record.

FtbDreaming

How come there suddenly buying after 40 years? Or are you buying it in their name using their discount?

FlatFour

FtbDreaming wrote: »

How come there suddenly buying after 40 years? Or are you buying it in their name using their discount?

No really relevant, is it? I wouldn't be able to buy it "in their name" anyway, would I?



Scoob.

da_rule

Can I just clarify that your parents were Council tenants but have, at some time in the past, transferred to a HA?

If so, it may be that the strip of land never transferred from the Council when the Council transferred its housing stock to the HA.

If this is the case then there really is little you can do as the HA cannot sell land they do not own and your parents cannot enforce the right to buy, in relation to the strip of land, against the Council as the Council are not your parents landlord.

davidmcn

G_M wrote: »

The extra land is presumably not included in the Land Registry Title for the property.

In a RTB sale I wouldn't expect there to already be a "Land Registry title for the property", it's much more likely to be the first time the house's title has been split off from the landlord's title for the estate. Assuming the same landlord owns the bit of garden in question, and it's been included in the OP's parents' tenancy, I can't see any reason for it not to be included in the sale.

lincroft1710

It is very unusual for planning to inspect a garden shed. However there is one important thing you should know - planning do not normally check or investigate if the person who erected (or caused to be erected) a building has trespassed on someone else's land.

In any case your parents had the right to use the land as they were renting it.