Title Plan Incorrect

davidmcn

What's beyond the bottom of the gardens?

Reece24

davidmcn said:

What's beyond the bottom of the gardens?

It's a small alleyway which is accessed by a passage at the side of the house at the end of the terrace. The alleyway doesn't differ in size at any point. The back gardens of every house on that row of terraces, and even the ones behind it on the adjacent street, are all the same size in terms of where the fencing ends and the alleyway is.

greatcrested

Does seem strange.

If it's not in your or your neighbour's titles I see 3 possibilities:

* it's an error. At some point, when your property was registered, the boundary was mis-drawn. this is pretty unlikely

* At some point that bit of land was sold off. Again unlikely. If it happened post compulsory registration it would have been registered by the buyer at the same time as removed from your title. If earlier it may never have been registered by the buyer. One imagines that could really only have been one of the 2 neighbours at the time, then, when they eventually registered their property (back in the 1970s?) they forgot they'd bought the extra plot.

* it's part of the alleyway. I assume your map enquiry did not show up a registered title for the alleyway (or you'd have mentioned this)? So the alley must be unregistered. Quite why the alley-owner would have aquired/retained that plot would be a mystery lost in the mists of history, but whoever owns the alley may have paperwork......

Reece24

greatcrested said:

Does seem strange.

If it's not in your or your neighbour's titles I see 3 possibilities:

* it's an error. At some point, when your property was registered, the boundary was mis-drawn. this is pretty unlikely

* At some point that bit of land was sold off. Again unlikely. If it happened post compulsory registration it would have been registered by the buyer at the same time as removed from your title. If earlier it may never have been registered by the buyer. One imagines that could really only have been one of the 2 neighbours at the time, then, when they eventually registered their property (back in the 1970s?) they forgot they'd bought the extra plot.

* it's part of the alleyway. I assume your map enquiry did not show up a registered title for the alleyway (or you'd have mentioned this)? So the alley must be unregistered. Quite why the alley-owner would have aquired/retained that plot would be a mystery lost in the mists of history, but whoever owns the alley may have paperwork......

Thanks for that, no registered title showed for the alleway.
Guess I just have to stick it out and see what the Land Registry advise.

Reece24

I'm sorry if this is a ridiculous question but regarding the title plan issue I've mentioned, say if the vendor/vendor's solicitor are not able to sort this issue ASAP, can an exchange of contract still happen at all? 
I'd assume if so, we would either need to not use the land or resolve the issue with the land registry ourselves?

Again sorry this may be a silly question, it's just with being a FTB me and my partner have been doing a load of over-thinking since we started our buying journey in March..

MoneyGeoff

Have you tried asking the Land Registry in the Land Registry Questions thread? They still seem to be replying to questions:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5685941/land-registry-questions/p229

davidmcn

Reece24 said:

I'm sorry if this is a ridiculous question but regarding the title plan issue I've mentioned, say if the vendor/vendor's solicitor are not able to sort this issue ASAP, can an exchange of contract still happen at all? 
I'd assume if so, we would either need to not use the land or resolve the issue with the land registry ourselves?

You can buy the property if you want, as long as you (and your lender) are happy with the fact you're not getting a registered title to that bit of ground. As I said above, worst case scenario is that somebody else comes along with a better title to the land and stops you from using it as part of your garden. Unless and until that happens, you don't need to stop using the land, and you also don't need to resolve it with the Land Registry.