Buying a house - unregistered land, any advice please?

mandyypops

Hello all,
My husband and I are in the process of purchasing what we hoped would be our forever home! Conveyancing and everything has gone incredibly smoothly, however we have become a bit unstuck at the very last hurdle with one final enquiry raised by our solicitor.
The property we are buying is registered, but the garden has been extended at some point in time (all the gardens down the road seem to have been extended actually) and it seems the extended area has never been registered. The end fence aligns with our neighbours fence (who have registered their extra garden plot) - so physically it all looks like one piece of land, there's nothing obvious to show some garden has been "added on". We are waiting on a definite confirmation on this from our sellers solicitor, who by Land Registry was asked to instruct a Search Index Map which will determine registration or not. However, my husband called Land Registry for some information on the process generally and LR advised over the phone it was unregistered. Our sellers solicitor is most unhelpful and our own solicitor has been unable to get hold of them (the phone just rings, they don't respond promptly to emails).
I would really appreciate some guidance please on what an unregistered parcel of land at the bottom of the garden means? Can we still complete even though it's unregistered, or is this potential a big blocker for us? We've been advised by our own solicitors that registering land can take 6 months, maybe more. We don't really want to wait that long and I think we would lose our own buyer if they had to wait 6 months, maybe more. Thank you!

HummingBird76

Do you know who does own the unregistered piece of land? 

cooltt

mandyypops said:

Hello all,
My husband and I are in the process of purchasing what we hoped would be our forever home! Conveyancing and everything has gone incredibly smoothly, however we have become a bit unstuck at the very last hurdle with one final enquiry raised by our solicitor.
The property we are buying is registered, but the garden has been extended at some point in time (all the gardens down the road seem to have been extended actually) and it seems the extended area has never been registered. The end fence aligns with our neighbours fence (who have registered their extra garden plot) - so physically it all looks like one piece of land, there's nothing obvious to show some garden has been "added on". We are waiting on a definite confirmation on this from our sellers solicitor, who by Land Registry was asked to instruct a Search Index Map which will determine registration or not. However, my husband called Land Registry for some information on the process generally and LR advised over the phone it was unregistered. Our sellers solicitor is most unhelpful and our own solicitor has been unable to get hold of them (the phone just rings, they don't respond promptly to emails).
I would really appreciate some guidance please on what an unregistered parcel of land at the bottom of the garden means? Can we still complete even though it's unregistered, or is this potential a big blocker for us? We've been advised by our own solicitors that registering land can take 6 months, maybe more. We don't really want to wait that long and I think we would lose our own buyer if they had to wait 6 months, maybe more. Thank you!

You can proceed with the purchase and just thank your solicitor for pointing the actual boundary of your land as registered.

They are correct the process of tracking down any possible owner (not registered does not mean not owned) and then offering to buy it could take forever. 

Continue to keep the land as part of your garden when you move in and after 12 years you can apply for adverse possession if, in that time the true owner doesn't come forward to claim the land. From what you've said it's highly unlikely anyone is going to claim this land. Don't tell your neighbours about it either, you never know what sneaky tricks they may use to try claim it themselves.  

Davesnave

This is very common where there has been a rear access way and householders have taken it on themselves to appropriate the section behind their garden. Such access ways are often seen as a security risk nowadays.

You should probably get your solicitor to obtain a written affidavit from the vendors as to the length of time they've used this section of garden to help you claim it in due course. If all other properties in the row have done similarly, it's unlikely anyone not living there will try to reclaim the land now.

mandyypops

@HummingBird76 we're not actually sure as yet who owns the land, again we haven't had official word from our sellers solicitor to say its unregistered, we're just going off the conversation my husband had with LR. We're also asking the estate agent to ask the seller if they do at least have the deeds to the land if it is confirmed as unregistered, as I understand this makes the process of registering it easier?
@cooltt what we don't know yet (our own solicitors were speculating the situation) but whether the sellers currently have the land under 'assumed possession' already. My understanding is if it under assumed possession this becomes even more tricky (and therefore longer) to register the land?
In both scenarios are we still able to complete without registration? Or will we end up having to wait for that to happen before we can complete?
Thank you all for your help!

davidmcn

You can complete if you accept that you're not getting any title to that bit of the garden.

greatcrested

The only 'deeds' the seller will have is the lease they purchased from the freeholder.

The freeholder will/should have the deeds relating to the freehold.

oystercatcher

We had this problem once. Sellers just said the land wasn't documented but had been part of the garden for a long time. We just bought the house and accepted that we may lose that bit of land but it was handy while it lasted, no problems selling on and house has changed hands a couple of times since still with the extra piece of land. This includes the building of a few houses on the land adjacent which could have perhaps involved a claim but there doesn't seem to have been one.

What it boils down to is would you still want the house without the extra land, only you know what value it adds . 

mandyypops

Thank you everyone... the parcel of land in question is about half the garden so we'd be really keen to do everything we can to try and register it. The current owners have been there since 1995, so as you say, unlikely there would be any claims against us registering it.
@oystercatcher Out of curiosity, were there any queries as to your property being revalued if some of the land was legally outside the boundaries?
Our solicitors mentioned if we couldn't register the plot of land, then the house would need to be revalued by our lender (and we'd have to reapply for mortgage) because in theory the property would be worth less without the whole of the land included?
Thank you

Doozergirl

I had the same issue when we bought our house.   The land in question is quite a big area, but so is the garden, it was probably 1/3 of the back.  I didn't notice until after we had moved in when I realised that our space extended into an area normally taken by houses on the next street.  

We contacted the Land Registry, they sent someone out and we were granted possessory title straight away because it was obvious that the land had been fenced in as part of our property a long time ago. 

Your vendors can sign a statutory declaration for you to show to the Land Registry stating how long they have had it fenced in for.  They could also provide an indemnity policy against loss in value and you can ask the mortgage company to re-value although ours was never any wiser!! 

The Google Earth app can be helpful in showing when it was merged into the garden as well.  It has a history of satellite images.  

mandyypops

Thank you @Doozergirl that is really helpful! I will definitely check out the history on Google Earth. Ooh really interesting about a statutory declaration, did you have to do this at all?
I think we'd have to revert to our solicitors for guidance about revaluation/mortgage company as this query progresses, as they already said they believe they'd be obligated to inform the mortgage lender should the end of the garden turn out to not be registered/not in the legal boundaries.
Interesting LR granted you PT straight away, we keep coming across 6-12 months as a timeline at the moment. But sounds like this was a quick decision for you which is promising