Questions re buying land

tatty82

I think I’m posting this in the correct place, apologies if not, I’m new to this!! 

Background- my husband and I have owned our home for 14 years, there’s a field/piece of land that is next to our property and is owned by another house in the same street. We’ve wanted this land for a number of years and it is now for sale. The owners are selling their house too, the land is attached to their garden, the house is listed for sale with an opportunity to buy ‘additional garden’, however they are happy to sell the house and land separately. 

If the land is sold separately to the house then the current boundaries (deeds?) need to be changed to reflect the portion of land that will be purchased as it’s joined to their garden at the moment. 

We are in the process of re-mortgaging and releasing equity in order to buy the land, and complete some other home improvements too, so we will be purchasing it using funds from our bank account when we come to make an offer. 

My questions are - 
1. Will we need to appoint a solicitor in order to make the offer and have the deeds etc. updated, or do we just make an offer and the sellers solicitor is responsible for the updating of boundaries and transfer of deeds?
2. Are there likely to be any issues if we are purchasing without using a mortgage/using money from our bank account?
3. At what point do we make an offer? Is it when we have an agreement in principle for the re-mortgage, once the mortgage offer has been made, or once we’ve actually re-mortgaged and have the equity we have released in our account? 

Any advice would be much appreciated!

trex227

Assuming the land is on the same title as the house (if the property is registered you could download the Land Registry title to see) then all it means if it’s sold separately is the transfer document that forms part of the contract documents provided by the sellers solicitors is a transfer of part TP1 rather than a transfer of whole TR1. The seller may need to get a surveyor to draw a land registry compliant plan.

If I were you I would be making the offer now, making it clear the money is coming from a remortgage. If you’re quite far down the line of the remortgage let them know this. Then if they accept the offer get solicitors instructed to act for you in the purchase.

trex227

And re your point 2- I would of thought, but don’t know, that getting a mortgage to buy land would be much more difficult than a standard mortgage for a house. You’ll just need to show proof of funds when buying- this will be easy as you’ll have the remortgage completion statement.

princeofpounds

1. You don't have to appoint a solicitor in theory but in practice you probably do, unless you fancy learning how to do conveyancing. The land may be on the same deeds as their house, or it may already be separate.

2. Nothing specific, if I understand you correctly. If you have the cash in your bank, you are generally considered to be a cash buyer (even if the ultimate source of the cash is from a remortgage on another property) and that may be perceived as an advantage in terms of speed and reliability.

3. You can make the offer whenever you like, but typically agreement in principle would be required before a vendor would consider taking it off the market and indicating their acceptance. Before that, you have no evidence of funds (or, more accurately, the potential to raise funds). 

I agree with trex, get the remortgage process going, you can get an AIP very quickly and then enter negotiations.

davidmcn

Bear in mind that your lender is likely to want you to add the new land to the existing mortgage (which will certainly require solicitor involvement at least on behalf of the lender).

tatty82

Thank you for all of your answers so far, they’ve certainly helped. 

We now have an agreement in principle for the remortgage, we are releasing equity and using the funds for home improvements and to buy the land, the bank we are remortgaging to have recorded the reason for the remortgage as ‘home improvements’ given that the land is small (0.3 acre) and will effectively be an extension to our garden (we will be using it to extend in to in the future, not for a number of years yet though), so I think this means we’ll own the land and it won’t be classed as being mortgaged? 

The land is not on the same deeds/title as the house they are selling, I’ve just checked land registry and the land has it’s own separate title register and title plan. The boundary’s will need to be changed on it though as they are not selling all of the plot, I’m guessing that’ll be their responsibility though? 

davidmcn

tatty82 said:

given that the land is small (0.3 acre) and will effectively be an extension to our garden (we will be using it to extend in to in the future, not for a number of years yet though), so I think this means we’ll own the land and it won’t be classed as being mortgaged? 

The fact that you might extend onto it is exactly why lenders are likely to want you to add it to the mortgage - otherwise they might end up only being able to repossess half a house! You may well find it's part of your existing mortgage conditions that if you buy neighbouring land you need to charge it to the lender.

ProDave

You might want to check what use the land has in planning terms.  It could well just have been agricutural land and nobody has bothered to change it.

If so you should be able to get a certificate of lawfulness to state is is now garden as it will probably have been used as garden for long enough.  You might want the vendor to start that process before the sale completes as they are the ones with proof of how long it has been used as garden,.

lincroft1710

ProDave beat me to it!
Definitely check current planning usage. If the land in question isn't actually used as a garden but is just a paddock, you will need change of use to garden land, which may not be granted.

tatty82

Thank you both. 

I think I maybe worded it incorrectly when I mentioned the potential extension; we have existing garden that runs along the boundary of the land we want to buy, so we’d be taking up our existing garden with the extension, not actually going on to the ‘new’ land. The new land will have the same purpose that it does now, which is recorded as ‘agricultural purposes or domestic garden’. 

The people who own it now have used part of it as a garden (the part they are selling with the house) and the other part (that hasn’t ever been used, the bit we want to buy) is just waste high grass/weeds. 

davidmcn

tatty82 said:

I think I maybe worded it incorrectly when I mentioned the potential extension; we have existing garden that runs along the boundary of the land we want to buy, so we’d be taking up our existing garden with the extension, not actually going on to the ‘new’ land. The new land will have the same purpose that it does now, which is recorded as ‘agricultural purposes or domestic garden’.

Well, same principle applies. Lender will want to repossess the whole house and its garden, not just part of it.