How to find land owner

FtbEmz

Hello. My husband and I are in the process of buying a ground floor maisonette. All is going well so far. Searches submitted and our solicitor is going through the draft contract and drawing up the report on title this week.
Our maisonette comes with a back and front garden. I know which pieces of land these are. However, my question is: immediately outside the front door is a small patch of land. I'm pretty sure it isn't assigned to any of the maisonettes. Ideally I'd like to buy this small patch/have it assigned to our maisonette. However, I'm reluctant to ask my solicitor to find out at the moment in case it delays our sale so I'm think of waiting until we have the keys and then asking if they can find out who the land belongs to. What I'm wondering is, is there another way I can find out now without asking my solicitor or should I just wait until we get the keys and then instruct her to find out? Also, the maisonette is leasehold, so I'm guessing the patch likely belongs to the freeholder? I'm terribly new to all of this so really don't have a clue - please don't shoot me down. I'm just not sure where to look for this information. Thank you. 

user1977

Just ask your solicitor. She's seen your title deeds and will have a better idea than any of us. 

xylophone

Our maisonette comes with a back and front garden. I know which pieces of land these are. However, my question is: immediately outside the front door is a small patch of land. 

Do you have a photograph of this?

FtbEmz

xylophone said:

Our maisonette comes with a back and front garden. I know which pieces of land these are. However, my question is: immediately outside the front door is a small patch of land. 

Do you have a photograph of this?

There is a photo of the back and front garden, plus I asked at the viewing and it was explained to me that the grassed area at the back is split into by a concrete divider with the ground floor maisonette having the left half, and upstairs the right half. The front garden is the same. I took a photo of the small outside the front door this morning, but I don't know how to upload a photo!

FtbEmz

user1977 said:

Just ask your solicitor. She's seen your title deeds and will have a better idea than any of us. 

Do you think it would delay the sale for her to find out?

user1977

FtbEmz said:

user1977 said:

Just ask your solicitor. She's seen your title deeds and will have a better idea than any of us. 

Do you think it would delay the sale for her to find out?

No. If this isn't necessary for your purchase she's not going to down tools until she's found the owner of this bit.

FtbEmz

user1977 said:

FtbEmz said:

user1977 said:

Just ask your solicitor. She's seen your title deeds and will have a better idea than any of us. 

Do you think it would delay the sale for her to find out?

No. If this isn't necessary for your purchase she's not going to down tools until she's found the owner of this bit.

Ok, thank you.

AdrianC

user1977 said:

Just ask your solicitor. She's seen your title deeds and will have a better idea than any of us. 

Hopefully, the solicitor's been over the plans with the OP...

OP - forget about it as part of the purchase, unless it's a showstopper. Once bought, download the other flat's lease, and the freehold, from LR and see what they say. Then either contact the freeholder... or forget about "ownership" and simply use it as if it were yours.

FtbEmz

AdrianC said:

user1977 said:

Just ask your solicitor. She's seen your title deeds and will have a better idea than any of us. 

Hopefully, the solicitor's been over the plans with the OP...

OP - forget about it as part of the purchase, unless it's a showstopper. Once bought, download the other flat's lease, and the freehold, from LR and see what they say. Then either contact the freeholder... or forget about "ownership" and simply use it as if it were yours.

Our solicitor hasn't gone over anything with us yet. She's going through all the paperwork this week, drawing up the report on title etc and when she's done that she'll go through it all with us. 

It's not a showstopper by any means and I'd rather get the sale sorted first and then find out about the land if means not facing any delays. 

I have just downloaded our title plan and it doesn't show the land in question as ours, but I have discovered the estate agents were incorrect in advising the section of front garden that was ours was the half closest to the road - the title plan actually shows it's the half closest to the property which is actually a lot better for us. Wonder why the estate got that wrong?

I did think to just use it as if it were ours as I can't see any other maisonettes using it as it is directly outside our front door, but I wasn't sure if I should really do that? Either way, I think we'll get keys and then ask the solicitor to find out and get a quote and go from there - seems to be the best option from the advice received here. Thank you. 

AdrianC

FtbEmz said:

AdrianC said:

user1977 said:

Just ask your solicitor. She's seen your title deeds and will have a better idea than any of us. 

Hopefully, the solicitor's been over the plans with the OP...

OP - forget about it as part of the purchase, unless it's a showstopper. Once bought, download the other flat's lease, and the freehold, from LR and see what they say. Then either contact the freeholder... or forget about "ownership" and simply use it as if it were yours.

Our solicitor hasn't gone over anything with us yet. She's going through all the paperwork this week, drawing up the report on title etc and when she's done that she'll go through it all with us.

We get threads here scarily often where people haven't done that bit at all... then looked surprised when they get a situation like...

I have just downloaded our title plan and it doesn't show the land in question as ours, but I have discovered the estate agents were incorrect in advising the section of front garden that was ours was the half closest to the road - the title plan actually shows it's the half closest to the property which is actually a lot better for us. Wonder why the estate got that wrong?

Because they believed the vendor. The EA don't do any legal digging, they just go with the vendor's representation to them. Your solicitor finds out if it's true.

I did think to just use it as if it were ours as I can't see any other maisonettes using it as it is directly outside our front door, but I wasn't sure if I should really do that?

Who's going to stop you?

FtbEmz

I did think to just use it as if it were ours as I can't see any other maisonettes using it as it is directly outside our front door, but I wasn't sure if I should really do that?

Who's going to stop you?

No one I guess. I can't see the freeholder turning up and giving us a telling off for having a table and chairs on it or a small trampoline/swing for our children but at the same time I know people can be funny and didn't want to risk one of the other maisonette owners complaining if we did!