Indemnity insurance

861117

We are selling our house and have just discovered that the back of the garden is unregistered ( we bought it from a neighbour 5 years ago) this does not affect the access to the house and nothing is built on it ,it is just a small part of garden.  Can we sell with indemnity insurance ? No one is going to claim the land as my neighbour had it for 20 years before we bought it and we mistakenly thought it was on our deeds. Does anyone have experience of this 
Thanks 😊

AdrianC

Can't you register it now?

861117

Only if we go down the route of adverse possession as he can’t find any deeds to say he owned the land just 20 years possession.
We are in the middle of selling our house and time is limited so not sure what the best option is ?

davidmcn

Indemnity insurance is generally accepted, especially if it's just an unimportant bit at the bottom of the garden. Plenty of previous threads here on similar situations.

lucypilates

I’ve just bought a property with an unregistered bit of ground that they’d extended on 20 years ago .. there wasn’t enough time to get them to register it but they did a statement of truth describing the adverse possession situation and when my solicitor registers the sale, she will also apply for adverse possession at the same time. I haven’t got any indemnity from sellers as it seems a pretty straightforward case. I did get them to pay for the fee tho ... so if you’re upfront with it, it shouldn’t be a barrier to selling ... 

Orba

Does anyone know if I can apply for adverse possession and also have indemnity insurance or will one invalidate the other ? 

Tiglet2

861117 said:

We are selling our house and have just discovered that the back of the garden is unregistered ( we bought it from a neighbour 5 years ago) this does not affect the access to the house and nothing is built on it ,it is just a small part of garden.  Can we sell with indemnity insurance ? No one is going to claim the land as my neighbour had it for 20 years before we bought it and we mistakenly thought it was on our deeds. Does anyone have experience of this 
Thanks 😊

Does your buyer need a mortgage?  If so, it will largely be up to the buyer's solicitor acting for the lender who will dictate what they will accept.  In my case, my buyer's lender would not accept indemnity insurance.

davidmcn

Orba said:

Does anyone know if I can apply for adverse possession and also have indemnity insurance or will one invalidate the other ? 

Depends on the terms of the policy, but many insurers won't want you to "rock the boat" by registering things or contacting other parties.

davidmcn

Tiglet2 said:

861117 said:

We are selling our house and have just discovered that the back of the garden is unregistered ( we bought it from a neighbour 5 years ago) this does not affect the access to the house and nothing is built on it ,it is just a small part of garden.  Can we sell with indemnity insurance ? No one is going to claim the land as my neighbour had it for 20 years before we bought it and we mistakenly thought it was on our deeds. Does anyone have experience of this 
Thanks 😊

Does your buyer need a mortgage?  If so, it will largely be up to the buyer's solicitor acting for the lender who will dictate what they will accept.  In my case, my buyer's lender would not accept indemnity insurance.

That sounds more like a line being spun by the buyers or their solicitors (assuming we're talking about something as inconsequential as the OP's scenario) rather than the lenders actually caring one way or another. Who owns a bit at the bottom of the garden is unlikely to make any significant difference to the marketability or value of the remainder of the property.

Tiglet2

davidmcn said:

Tiglet2 said:

861117 said:

We are selling our house and have just discovered that the back of the garden is unregistered ( we bought it from a neighbour 5 years ago) this does not affect the access to the house and nothing is built on it ,it is just a small part of garden.  Can we sell with indemnity insurance ? No one is going to claim the land as my neighbour had it for 20 years before we bought it and we mistakenly thought it was on our deeds. Does anyone have experience of this 
Thanks 😊

Does your buyer need a mortgage?  If so, it will largely be up to the buyer's solicitor acting for the lender who will dictate what they will accept.  In my case, my buyer's lender would not accept indemnity insurance.

That sounds more like a line being spun by the buyers or their solicitors (assuming we're talking about something as inconsequential as the OP's scenario) rather than the lenders actually caring one way or another. Who owns a bit at the bottom of the garden is unlikely to make any significant difference to the marketability or value of the remainder of the property.

I suspect it was a line spun by the buyers and their solicitors (actually licensed conveyancers), but they would not budge unfortunately much to my frustration.  An application for registration was successful but did add 3 months to the sale.

lizabethgell

If you do not have deeds to the land it’ll take ages to register with land reg, this can be expedited but they still give ten days between each point of contact for their “speedy” service. I’d recommend indemnity policy for my clients but it could be pricey