How to purchase/obtain small parcel of unregistered land?

darkwarrior

Sorry if this is the wrong section, this is a follow up to a thread I made a few months ago about identifying the owner of a small piece of land immediately behind my house.

The land is a raised concrete driveway with no garage. It is one of several detached garages on the cul-de-sac behind my home but this one immediately connects to ours. I was told over the years that it belonged to the owner of the next nearest house but after noticing it not mentioned in the house listing when it was sold many years ago, I did some investigating and learned it is not on the deeds of any homes nearby. 

It has never been used. I have lived here 36 years. Russian ivy from our garden overgrew our fence and the driveway (I do have pics of the before part) and it was never used, plus the driveway part of it is too narrow to get a car on if the one next to it is in use.

So based on advice from this forum, I contacted the land registry, identifying the land as cleary as I could using Google maps, streetview and deeds, and it has come back that no one owns that land. It's all a bit legal-ese for me but it says

"No registered estate, caution against first registration or application for first registration or application for a caution against first registration is shown on the index map in relation to the property. We therefore hold no records in respect of the property."

I want to claim this land as I have maintained it in most of that time, either through garden maintenance or in recent years, building steps and better access through our back garden as it is also our right of way. It's been unused for all of its existence as far as I am aware and I have maintained it, so how can I purchase it? 

I have tried reading through these forums and searching obviously but there doesn't seem to be a straight forward answer to it but I'd like to proceed as soon as possible as my intention would be to build a garage on it.

Thanks everyone.

Slithery

darkwarrior said:

...and it has come back that no one owns that land.

Incorrect. All land is owned by someone, it just hasn't transferred ownership since compulsory registration was introduced so the LR don't hold the records.
You need to look into 'adverse possesion'.

davidmcn

darkwarrior said:

So based on advice from this forum, I contacted the land registry, identifying the land as cleary as I could using Google maps, streetview and deeds, and it has come back that no one owns that land. It's all a bit legal-ese for me but it says

"No registered estate, caution against first registration or application for first registration or application for a caution against first registration is shown on the index map in relation to the property. We therefore hold no records in respect of the property."

That doesn't mean no one owns it, it means nobody has a registered title to it. There could be an owner with an unregistered title. As it sounds like it formed part of the development you live on, at the very least I would expect the original developers owned it. You haven't linked to your earlier threads so I won't repeat stuff about adverse possession etc in case we're going over old ground.

darkwarrior

davidmcn said:

darkwarrior said:

So based on advice from this forum, I contacted the land registry, identifying the land as cleary as I could using Google maps, streetview and deeds, and it has come back that no one owns that land. It's all a bit legal-ese for me but it says

"No registered estate, caution against first registration or application for first registration or application for a caution against first registration is shown on the index map in relation to the property. We therefore hold no records in respect of the property."

That doesn't mean no one owns it, it means nobody has a registered title to it. There could be an owner with an unregistered title. As it sounds like it formed part of the development you live on, at the very least I would expect the original developers owned it. You haven't linked to your earlier threads so I won't repeat stuff about adverse possession etc in case we're going over old ground.

davidmcn said:

darkwarrior said:

So based on advice from this forum, I contacted the land registry, identifying the land as cleary as I could using Google maps, streetview and deeds, and it has come back that no one owns that land. It's all a bit legal-ese for me but it says

"No registered estate, caution against first registration or application for first registration or application for a caution against first registration is shown on the index map in relation to the property. We therefore hold no records in respect of the property."

That doesn't mean no one owns it, it means nobody has a registered title to it. There could be an owner with an unregistered title. As it sounds like it formed part of the development you live on, at the very least I would expect the original developers owned it. You haven't linked to your earlier threads so I won't repeat stuff about adverse possession etc in case we're going over old ground.

I also contacted the company that claims the leasehold of the houses and they said they don't own it either.

ElephantBoy57

darkwarrior said:

The land is a raised concrete driveway with no garage. It is one of several detached garages on the cul-de-sac behind my home but this one immediately connects to ours.

Who owned the other garages, who made the concrete base?

Go for it.

DCFC79

davidmcn said:

darkwarrior said:

So based on advice from this forum, I contacted the land registry, identifying the land as cleary as I could using Google maps, streetview and deeds, and it has come back that no one owns that land. It's all a bit legal-ese for me but it says

"No registered estate, caution against first registration or application for first registration or application for a caution against first registration is shown on the index map in relation to the property. We therefore hold no records in respect of the property."

That doesn't mean no one owns it, it means nobody has a registered title to it. There could be an owner with an unregistered title. As it sounds like it formed part of the development you live on, at the very least I would expect the original developers owned it. You haven't linked to your earlier threads so I won't repeat stuff about adverse possession etc in case we're going over old ground.

Thread 1
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6167891/find-out-who-owns-a-driveway#latest

A thread from 4 years ago on same subject
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5454414/can-i-claim-land-behind-my-house#latest

darkwarrior

DCFC79 said:

davidmcn said:

darkwarrior said:

So based on advice from this forum, I contacted the land registry, identifying the land as cleary as I could using Google maps, streetview and deeds, and it has come back that no one owns that land. It's all a bit legal-ese for me but it says

"No registered estate, caution against first registration or application for first registration or application for a caution against first registration is shown on the index map in relation to the property. We therefore hold no records in respect of the property."

That doesn't mean no one owns it, it means nobody has a registered title to it. There could be an owner with an unregistered title. As it sounds like it formed part of the development you live on, at the very least I would expect the original developers owned it. You haven't linked to your earlier threads so I won't repeat stuff about adverse possession etc in case we're going over old ground.

Thread 1
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6167891/find-out-who-owns-a-driveway#latest

A thread from 4 years ago on same subject
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5454414/can-i-claim-land-behind-my-house#latest

I don't remember that original post but it is for a different piece of land adjacent to the driveway. At the time I just wanted to ascertain our right of way. Now I want the driveway. The main difference is I've done the investigating now to try and find the original owner(s).

davidmcn

darkwarrior said:

davidmcn said:

darkwarrior said:

So based on advice from this forum, I contacted the land registry, identifying the land as cleary as I could using Google maps, streetview and deeds, and it has come back that no one owns that land. It's all a bit legal-ese for me but it says

"No registered estate, caution against first registration or application for first registration or application for a caution against first registration is shown on the index map in relation to the property. We therefore hold no records in respect of the property."

That doesn't mean no one owns it, it means nobody has a registered title to it. There could be an owner with an unregistered title. As it sounds like it formed part of the development you live on, at the very least I would expect the original developers owned it. You haven't linked to your earlier threads so I won't repeat stuff about adverse possession etc in case we're going over old ground.

davidmcn said:

darkwarrior said:

So based on advice from this forum, I contacted the land registry, identifying the land as cleary as I could using Google maps, streetview and deeds, and it has come back that no one owns that land. It's all a bit legal-ese for me but it says

"No registered estate, caution against first registration or application for first registration or application for a caution against first registration is shown on the index map in relation to the property. We therefore hold no records in respect of the property."

That doesn't mean no one owns it, it means nobody has a registered title to it. There could be an owner with an unregistered title. As it sounds like it formed part of the development you live on, at the very least I would expect the original developers owned it. You haven't linked to your earlier threads so I won't repeat stuff about adverse possession etc in case we're going over old ground.

I also contacted the company that claims the leasehold of the houses and they said they don't own it either.

Do you mean freehold? If not, who owns the freehold?

Bear in mind sometimes people simply don't realise that they own land.

darkwarrior

davidmcn said:

darkwarrior said:

davidmcn said:

darkwarrior said:

So based on advice from this forum, I contacted the land registry, identifying the land as cleary as I could using Google maps, streetview and deeds, and it has come back that no one owns that land. It's all a bit legal-ese for me but it says

"No registered estate, caution against first registration or application for first registration or application for a caution against first registration is shown on the index map in relation to the property. We therefore hold no records in respect of the property."

That doesn't mean no one owns it, it means nobody has a registered title to it. There could be an owner with an unregistered title. As it sounds like it formed part of the development you live on, at the very least I would expect the original developers owned it. You haven't linked to your earlier threads so I won't repeat stuff about adverse possession etc in case we're going over old ground.

davidmcn said:

darkwarrior said:

So based on advice from this forum, I contacted the land registry, identifying the land as cleary as I could using Google maps, streetview and deeds, and it has come back that no one owns that land. It's all a bit legal-ese for me but it says

"No registered estate, caution against first registration or application for first registration or application for a caution against first registration is shown on the index map in relation to the property. We therefore hold no records in respect of the property."

That doesn't mean no one owns it, it means nobody has a registered title to it. There could be an owner with an unregistered title. As it sounds like it formed part of the development you live on, at the very least I would expect the original developers owned it. You haven't linked to your earlier threads so I won't repeat stuff about adverse possession etc in case we're going over old ground.

I also contacted the company that claims the leasehold of the houses and they said they don't own it either.

Do you mean freehold? If not, who owns the freehold?

Bear in mind sometimes people simply don't realise that they own land.

Freehold, yes, sorry.

These houses were all built in the 60s which I think is after you HAD to register, so it sounds like adverse possession is the way to go, as whoever owns it isn't around.

greatcrested

No. The date for compulsory 1st registration of land varied according to location and (broadly) covers 1970s - 1990ish

You've already been linked to information on adverse possession, so I'm not sure what more you expect here.

Slithery

darkwarrior said:
These houses were all built in the 60s which I think is after you HAD to register

Nope, compulsory registration didn't start until the 80's.