Value of back garden

ashpan

I’m considering offering sections of my back garden to 3 neighbours who’s gardens back on to mine, how do I find out the value of my land without forking out on surveyors etc? I own the freehold and know I’ll have to use a solicitor but no idea how to value the land or how much value it would put on their properties? 

AdrianC

At the very simplest level...

How much would it take off the value of your house without the garden?
How much would it add to theirs?

Do you have a mortgage?

saajan_12

Due to the positioning, the value of an x by y patch of land is not really relevant. A third party wouldn't really pay the same for land they can't access etc. The marriage value of <house with bigger garden> (or smaller for yours) will be more relevant. That might also be something you have comparables for in the neighbouring streets. 

You'll also need to cover costs to get the deeds split on your property / merged on theirs. 

eddddy

You should aim to sell at the maximum price that the neighbours are prepared to pay - whatever that is. Unfortunately there is no formula for working that out.

If you asked a valuer, they would look at 'marriage values' - i.e. How much the neighbour's houses will increase in value with larger gardens. But TBH, it's likely that larger gardens will not really increase the value of their houses at all (unless it means they can extend their houses etc)

So it's really just down to lifestyle / emotional factors. For example, if a neighbour wants more room for their children to play, or more room to grow vegetables, etc - how badly do they want it, and so how much are they prepared to pay?

If only 1 or 2 neighbours (out of the 3) want more garden, is the scheme still viable?

ProDave

Be careful.  why do you want to sell it?  Think what they could do with it.

Cautionary tale.

I know of someone that had a 3 metre wide side garden to a semi detached house.  For some strange reason he decided he wanted to sell that and offered it to the next door neighbour for £3000.  The neigbour bought it.  the neigbour als had the same 3M wide side garden.  He now owned a 6M wide piece of land between 2 houses, got planning permission and built another house on it.

531063

ProDave said:

Be careful.  why do you want to sell it?  Think what they could do with it.

Cautionary tale.

I know of someone that had a 3 metre wide side garden to a semi detached house.  For some strange reason he decided he wanted to sell that and offered it to the next door neighbour for £3000.  The neigbour bought it.  the neigbour als had the same 3M wide side garden.  He now owned a 6M wide piece of land between 2 houses, got planning permission and built another house on it.

Hindsight's a wonderful thing, but he should have held on to a ransom strip to stop development 

ProDave

531063 said:

ProDave said:

Be careful.  why do you want to sell it?  Think what they could do with it.

Cautionary tale.

I know of someone that had a 3 metre wide side garden to a semi detached house.  For some strange reason he decided he wanted to sell that and offered it to the next door neighbour for £3000.  The neigbour bought it.  the neigbour als had the same 3M wide side garden.  He now owned a 6M wide piece of land between 2 houses, got planning permission and built another house on it.

Hindsight's a wonderful thing, but he should have held on to a ransom strip to stop development 

Or put an uplift clause on the sale.

gingercordial

This sounds like a recipe for disaster if you still live there.

The neighbours at No.1 are keen to have a bigger garden, so offer you £10k.  Happy days.  But No.5 aren't that bothered - they'll give you £3k if you're really wanting to sell, so you say yes because that's all good money for something you don't want... Until No.5 starts talking to No.1 down the pub and No.1 is furious...

greatcrested

It is only worth as much as the neighbours are willig tp pay. There is no objective value and no point paying a surveyor for a valuation.

If one or more neighbour despararately wants a bigger garden, they'll pay a lot to get it. If they aren't that bothered, they might buy it if it's cheap enough.

The only 'objective' value to bear in mind is how much less you'd be able to sell your house for without that land.

duggan1

ProDave said:

Be careful.  why do you want to sell it?  Think what they could do with it.

Cautionary tale.

I know of someone that had a 3 metre wide side garden to a semi detached house.  For some strange reason he decided he wanted to sell that and offered it to the next door neighbour for £3000.  The neigbour bought it.  the neigbour als had the same 3M wide side garden.  He now owned a 6M wide piece of land between 2 houses, got planning permission and built another house on it.

Precisely why I want to buy a strip of school land that splits my garden from neighbours. It's probably doable to build a (thin) house there but I'd rather have a bigger garden:D Getting anyone to talk to me about it from the local authority has proven to be nigh impossible though.

trex227

2 doors down from my parents bought the top section of their neighbours garden (inter war property with 2 largeish sections of gardens) for £30k. They’re wealthy and wanted somewhere for kids play equipment to be out of the main garden.

Theres some overgrown garden land directly behind our house (prob half size of the above plot). If the owner offered to sell it to me absolute max I would pay is £2k. After all it’s more garden to tend to, I’d have to take out the fence/put a gate in i.e. a load of hassle.

And that’s before even getting into the legal hassle. I used to work at a solicitors and we were always getting asked to deal with garden sales. Because the transactions tend to drag on and are more annoying to deal with we didn’t quote much less on legal fees than what we charged for a sale or purchase. Also often you have to get a surveyor in to draw up plans that are Land Registry compliant for it to be registered upon completion.