Selling part of garden to neighbour - Looking for some advice

rexmedorum

bouicca21 said:

Several years ago a relative was in a similar position, except that he was the one wanting to buy a bit of garden.  The question of valuation was a tricky one.  The vendor insisted tha land should valued as having building potential (a local developer had bought some houses with big gardens and put a new street of houses in).  It was seriously unlikely that such a development would take place so the counter argument was that it was just a bit of garden with no intrinsic value above, say, a bit of field.

The reality was that it wasn’t really about value in pounds per sq metre, or about the value it would add to relative’s house. It was about the value of having the enjoyment of a nice garden.  The vendor got his price.

It's not like the neoughbour can go elsewhere to buy extra land!

timbotambo

Maybe I'm a minority here but you have a large garden and this will make no difference to you whatsoever then it's essentially free money, a new fence, nicely squared off garden, for no impact. I'd go in at £7.5k plus costs, agree for them to plant and maintain some nice mature trees, and have a few nice holidays from the money!

tlc678910

I think they probably want to buy the land so that they can have a rear extension and still have a little garden or patio.

If I were you I couldn't be bothered with the faff for 5k so I would go with asking for the 10k.  (take it or leave it) You definately don't need to do it as a favour - only if you want to.  Make sure the fencing is agreed to the standard you are happy with and any costs of solicitors and registry are covered.  Don't bluff with the price though if they decide not to bother because of price then you don't want to be sad to have missed out.

Another thing to consider is will it bother you if they put a noisy hot tub against the fence or tall trees that cast shade? Your garden is still quite long so perhaps not a problem. 

Slinky

Add trampoline and treehouse to the list of unacceptable uses for the transferred land.

Tokmon

GDB2222 said:

Marriage value doesn't come into it. 

You need to estimate how much the neighbour's house will go up in value. There's no good reason why your neighbour would want to pay you more than 100% of that, but I don't see why they should pay you much less.  His estate agent has dutifully suggested 50%, but that's just hokum.

I suggest that you ask another estate agent what he thinks, because he might come up with a very different base figure than £10k.

If the neighbour really wants the land and the OP will sell it for no less than £20k then they might agree with that because the only other option would be to sell and move which is far more hassle so they might decide that it's worth it as they have no other options.

Many people do things to their homes to make them better for them which doesn't cause it to increase in value, so it's not just purely house value that comes into it.