Land Registry issues

philgc

Hi,

hit what i consider a tiny snag in selling our house, but one that might make the sale fall through.

When we bought our house, there was a tiny strip of (completely useless) land attached to the end of it which goes behind next doors boundary perimeter and between the estate at the back. We were told by our solicitors and the previous owners that this would belong to us. However when we've come to sell our house 12-13 years later, this 80cm wide strip of land inst on our deeds.

Our current solicitors have suggested that the original solicitors for the purchase haven't transferred it on the land registry to us 12 years ago.

Is this a big issue? Our solicitors are pretty slow. How would I go about 'gaining' the land that Ive always presumed and told was ours in the first place? Is this completely academic?

The purchasers are threatening to pull out if the land isnt ours.

The land has never been disputed or questioned in the entire time we've lived here.

Thanks for listening

Phil

davidmcn

Has anybody checked whether the strip is registered? And if so, to whom? Did your sellers have a title to it?

Not having a title to a tiny strip at the bottom of the garden is pretty academic and a daft reason for your buyers to walk away. It should be easily remedied one way or another, even if just by getting indemnity insurance.

princeofpounds

There are basically four ways to resolve this, as far as I can see:

- If the problem is simply that the registration wasn't done, then you need to process that registration. You will need to contact your old solicitors, get the file out of archive, and process it. 

- If the problem is that the strip wasn't actually included in the sale, then you may be looking at going through adverse possession. Given you've been there 12 years, that's probably a viable route for you (and in fact a process you could assign to your vendors to prevent hold-ups, I believe).

- If the problem is that nothing can be done because it's unregistered and/or the documents have gone missing, then you are looking at indemnity insurance, which should satisfy any reasonable buyer. Particularly in conjunction with adverse possession.

- Knock £500 or whatever off your selling price and sell everything except that piece of land, which is just left to its own devices in future.


Your buyers are being a bit silly (unless they have plans where this strip is essential), but unfortunately there's no law against that.

philgc

My solicitors are looking into it now but like i say, theyve been fairly slow on everything so far so asking for opinions and advice on here. Stressing me out.

Unknown iif its on the sellers had the title to it.

The fact theyre threatening to pull out if it doesnt get sorted soon smells like cold feet

philgc

princeofpounds said:

There are basically four ways to resolve this, as far as I can see:

- If the problem is simply that the registration wasn't done, then you need to process that registration. You will need to contact your old solicitors, get the file out of archive, and process it. 

- If the problem is that the strip wasn't actually included in the sale, then you may be looking at going through adverse possession. Given you've been there 12 years, that's probably a viable route for you (and in fact a process you could assign to your vendors to prevent hold-ups, I believe).

- If the problem is that nothing can be done because it's unregistered and/or the documents have gone missing, then you are looking at indemnity insurance, which should satisfy any reasonable buyer. Particularly in conjunction with adverse possession.

- Knock £500 or whatever off your selling price and sell everything except that piece of land, which is just left to its own devices in future.


Your buyers are being a bit silly (unless they have plans where this strip is essential), but unfortunately there's no law against that.

Many thanks. Hopefully sounds academic then.

Ive lived here 12 years and so far found no use for this strip of land, other than to go down it every 12 months with a watering can of weed killer.

Sounds like i just have to let my slow solicitors look into it.

I believe our original purchase documentation will now have been destroyed (says they get rid of them after 12 years

philgc

Speaking to the original seller, the land at the back was purchased by redrow to build the new estate, but they left a gap between the new estate perimeter and the original houses, giving rise to this tiny strip of land.

The land either belongs to redrow still, or is owned by the neighbours to the rear of me in the new estate. But considering those neighbours recently replaced the dividing fence without taking the land themselves, they mustn't believe they own it.

What a headache 

never_again_123

From our experience, it's actually been the solicitors scaring the life out of buyers and advising against purchasing due to a small strip of land at the end of the garden that wasn't included in our title deeds. They were told that someone could just come along and put a caravan on there (it had been enclosed as a garden for 40 years with no one else having any interest in it 🤦‍♀️) and also that it would be unmortgageable if they wanted to sell again! (we had cash buyers). The tiny bit of land had no impact whatsoever on the property value. They had to sign a waiver in the end to confirm they were going against their solicitors advice. Not something many buyers would be willing to do understandably!

Thankfully, they did all their own very thorough research, including talking to neighbours who had the same (i.e a small strip of land not registered to them) and had successfully applied for adverse possession with no issue.

We provided a statement of truth to allow them to apply for adverse possession at a later date and an indemnity insurance in the meantime should they wish to wait a few years before applying. We didn't apply ourselves due to being advised it can take months and our purchase would have certainly fallen through. 
Don't approach anyone who you think the land might belong to without your solicitors advice, as this could invalidate any later adverse possession claim or indemnity insurance (that's my limited understanding anyway!)

Just another perspective. Whilst it seems insignificant (as it very much did to us) it may be the advice your buyers are getting from their solicitor that is putting them off.

AdrianC

Did you not look at the title maps with your solicitor when you purchased?

davidmcn

philgc said:

The land either belongs to redrow still, or is owned by the neighbours to the rear of me in the new estate.

Easy enough to find out which, if anybody bothers to log into the Land Registry...

philgc

never_again_123 said:

From our experience, it's actually been the solicitors scaring the life out of buyers and advising against purchasing due to a small strip of land at the end of the garden that wasn't included in our title deeds. They were told that someone could just come along and put a caravan on there (it had been enclosed as a garden for 40 years with no one else having any interest in it 🤦‍♀️) and also that it would be unmortgageable if they wanted to sell again! (we had cash buyers). The tiny bit of land had no impact whatsoever on the property value. They had to sign a waiver in the end to confirm they were going against their solicitors advice. Not something many buyers would be willing to do understandably!

Thankfully, they did all their own very thorough research, including talking to neighbours who had the same (i.e a small strip of land not registered to them) and had successfully applied for adverse possession with no issue.

We provided a statement of truth to allow them to apply for adverse possession at a later date and an indemnity insurance in the meantime should they wish to wait a few years before applying. We didn't apply ourselves due to being advised it can take months and our purchase would have certainly fallen through. 
Don't approach anyone who you think the land might belong to without your solicitors advice, as this could invalidate any later adverse possession claim or indemnity insurance (that's my limited understanding anyway!)

Just another perspective. Whilst it seems insignificant (as it very much did to us) it may be the advice your buyers are getting from their solicitor that is putting them off.

Thank you so much for your reply. I have been looking into the issue and think it may be that we will have to apply for adverse possession and like you advise perform a statement of truth for the next buyer to get it through. If this is something that they are happy to go along with who knows because they seem to be overly concerned by it and a bit rambunctious in the handling of it so far, but I agree, this could be as you say the solicitors stoking up unnecessary concern.

AdrianC said:

Did you not look at the title maps with your solicitor when you purchased?

TBH, no, was our first house so just excited to move in, the stuff just went in a drawer never seen again until we came to sell. We had some correspondence with the solicitor of our 2009 purchase specifically mentioning 'the boundary perimeter being extended between the property and the new housing estate' so theyve maybe forgot to do this perimeter extension on the land registry. who knows.



Stressing me out though, spent £2500 so far to get to this point to have it potentially fall through over what is essentially a useless thin strip of wasteland

philgc

further to this after a few days reflection, I myself am now prepared to pull out of the sale over this issue, with the main reason being that if the sellers insist this is sorted before they move in, it will push us past the stamp duty holiday date, so I am now 100% prepared to cut our losses, save up for another 12 months and re list the house next year.

My hand is forced on this issue now, as we cant afford the stamp duty. Plus the chain may well collapse anyway as the others involved similarly wont want to pay it either.