Buying a house with 'not-owned land' in boundary. Do I?

Blowsbubbles

Hello all your lovely knowledgable people - would appreciate your opinion and advice: 
I am buying an amazing house; large driveway and gardens with a council-owned park next door. On the land registry the boundary lines show a small triangle of white 'not-owned' land within what I would consider my property boundaries (on my driveway and garden) right beside this there are council owned public steps. (showing as red/ owned). The strip is probably about 3 metres long, and 50cm at widest point triangulating down. I cannot see anyone (e.g the council) would have any use for this due to the difference in levels of steps and driveway. It is also of no real consequence to me if lost from boundaries in that I would still have enough driveway and garden - although the garden is tiered and does have a brick side. So potentially if council decides it's theirs would I have to pay to dismantle and move wall? 
I've read that Land Registry plans can be vague so do I just accept it will be ok?  I have two plans; a hand-drawn red mark on an OS map that looks ok, and an electronic one with red shading that does not. 
Through the conveyancing process we asked the vendor to investigate with Land Registry and confirm boundaries. Frustratingly they haven't, and we are about to exchange. The top of the chain is getting very impatient and won't wait for this. 
My estate agent also mentioned an indemnity we can take out - however my solicitor has not heard of one suitable - any ideas?  
Thirdly trying to think of future buyers - how put off would people be of this? (the driveway can easily fit three cars in without the land, the garden is probably 50x10 meters so won't have a significant effect on it's loss either) TIA
  

Tiglet2

This is really a problem for the vendor to sort out. 

Unless your solicitor and your lender (if you are obtaining a mortgage) are happy with this situation, you were not about to exchange.

If the council own this parcel of land, it could be that there are "services" buried underneath, such as media cables, conduits, water pipes etc and there will be little chance of you purchasing this parcel from them.  

Is there a possibility of the land being unregistered?  If so, the vendor could apply for adverse possession if they have been using the land as their own for at least 10 years.  This will take around 3 months.

If the property is still worth purchasing without the land and your solicitor and mortgage lender don't see any issues, you can just buy as is and carry on using the land as part of your property in the same way that the current vendor has.

You should seek the advice of your solicitor.  This is not an area of expertise for the EA.  The EA is selling the property, they do not know anything of a legal nature about the property, other than any information given by the vendor.



 

verytired11

The property I have had an offer accepted on has a weird kink in the boundary which effectively means there is a small strip of land that looks as if it should be on our land but actually isn't ours.  The solicitor says that there is a statutory declaration from the previous owners to the current owners saying that they used the land, have always used it, no one else has ever tried to use it or stop them using it etc.  She says she will seek a similar stat dec from the sellers when we exchange.  On that basis I am happy to proceed.  Perhaps you could suggest this solution to your solicitor.

user1977

I doubt a wedge which is (at most) 50cm wide is actually discernable one way or another if all you're doing is trying to scale up from plans. I wouldn't worry about it, especially if it isn't essential for access and doesn't have any buildings on it.

And it's one of the most common types of indemnity insurance if you felt that was needed, so not sure why your solicitor is puzzled about that suggestion.

Blowsbubbles

And it's one of the most common types of indemnity insurance if you felt that was needed, so not sure why your solicitor is puzzled about that suggestion.

Really could you offer me any more information on it , that I could pass on please? 

Blowsbubbles

verytired11 said:

The property I have had an offer accepted on has a weird kink in the boundary which effectively means there is a small strip of land that looks as if it should be on our land but actually isn't ours.  The solicitor says that there is a statutory declaration from the previous owners to the current owners saying that they used the land, have always used it, no one else has ever tried to use it or stop them using it etc.  She says she will seek a similar stat dec from the sellers when we exchange.  On that basis I am happy to proceed.  Perhaps you could suggest this solution to your solicitor.

That sounds like a very good plan - thank you

Blowsbubbles

Tiglet2 said:

This is really a problem for the vendor to sort out. 

Unless your solicitor and your lender (if you are obtaining a mortgage) are happy with this situation, you were not about to exchange.

If the council own this parcel of land, it could be that there are "services" buried underneath, such as media cables, conduits, water pipes etc and there will be little chance of you purchasing this parcel from them.  

Is there a possibility of the land being unregistered?  If so, the vendor could apply for adverse possession if they have been using the land as their own for at least 10 years.  This will take around 3 months.

If the property is still worth purchasing without the land and your solicitor and mortgage lender don't see any issues, you can just buy as is and carry on using the land as part of your property in the same way that the current vendor has.

You should seek the advice of your solicitor.  This is not an area of expertise for the EA.  The EA is selling the property, they do not know anything of a legal nature about the property, other than any information given by the vendor.



 

Tell me about!! We asked them back in February and they have done nothing about it. 
Yes land was unregistered, hence us asking to investigate and get it registered. They haven't. It's now holding up exchange, and the upper chains are getting really impatient. (ones pregnant, ones buying a house which is leaking so they really won't wait 3 months)

Mickey666

50cm at the widest point?!!!  This will likely be narrower than the red-line used to define the title boundary on the scale map!

I had a similar thing with our property, which happens to be split across a number of titles.  The boundary of one title did not fully meet the boundary of the adjacent title, even though I owned both titles that were historically derived from a larger single title.

I contacted LR about the discrepancy and they arranged for somefrom from ordnace Survey to come out and check it out.  He turned up with a fancy GPS measuring gizmo accurate to less than 2cm, confirmed the two titles should border each other and updated the mapping system on his laptop there and then.  LR subsequently updated the title plans and all was well.

I have some old deeds where the boundary lines are so thick on the drawings that they probably represent many metres on the ground.  This was probably fine for defining the boundaries of large rural estates but as house plots became smaller and smaller and measuring accuracy improved it's easy to see how these sorts of anomalies can arise.

If I was the OP I'd consider the implication on the property as a whole if this 'sliver' of land was lost to someone else, which is the worst case scenario.  If that would not be a problem then go ahead with the purchase.  If the OP does purchase, then they could subsequently contact LR to point out the anomaly and ask if it could be corrected.

PS:  Being pedantic, the thread title doesn't make sense because you can't have a property with 'un-owned' land within the title boundary.  There may well be a small piece of land outside the title boundary but that just means it's not part of the title in question - by definition.

user1977

Blowsbubbles said:

And it's one of the most common types of indemnity insurance if you felt that was needed, so not sure why your solicitor is puzzled about that suggestion.

Really could you offer me any more information on it , that I could pass on please? 

This sort of thing:
https://gcs-title.co.uk/instant-issue/policies-glance/adverse-possession/

lucypilates

With my recent purchase, there was some unregistered land which the vendors had built an extension on, 20 years ago.
As part of the conveyancing, my solicitor got them to fill out the forms required by land registry to apply for adverse possession. I think it's called ST1 but you can easily check this. It's a statement of fact that they had used the land as their own for more than the required time (I think it's 12 years?) and that nobody had asked them for rent or declared it as their own. It is clearly very easy for them to prove that they've used it for this period of time as they've built upon it!

Ordinarily, I'd have expected the vendors to do this before exchange but because of COVID and backlog at LR, plus trying to meet the STLD deadline, it was decided that it was enough for them to complete the ST1 and my solicitor would send the docs to LR when she registered the property in my name as part of the conveyancing.

I believe that your situation sounds similar and maybe your solicitor could get them to do the same - complete the documentation so they can make the application at the same time as registering the new owner ... 

Hope that helps