Adverse Possession

glimmertwin

Hello all, I'm new on here.
My story goes way back so please bear with me.

I bought a property (1 bedroom flat) in 2004, which was a leasehold property. (Sinclair Gardens Investments Kensington Ltd) are the management company based in Lymme Regis.
I moved in & was quite happy.
Sometime in 2005 or early 2006 the lady who I purchased the flat from knocked on my door & thrust a key to a garage into my hand.
Her words were......
You can use the garage but you will have to share it with xxxx upstairs.
You won't have room for your car but can use it for storage.
I hardly ever saw xxxx from upstairs because I knew he was unwell.
He subsequently passed away 18 months or so later & so did the lady I purchased the flat from.
As far as I'm aware her relatives sold up & moved away to another part of England.

When she bought the 1 bedroom flat she purchased the garage separately from the flat, so as far as I'm aware the garage was never connected to the flat or part of sale or purchase or the mortgage.

So, I was then left with a garage & I was the only person who had a key.
This was as far back as 2005 or 2006.
I cleared out the garage & carried on using it.

Due to loss of employment & not keeping up the mortgage repayments the 1 bedroom flat was repossessed in June 2012........ I moved on.
The property was again sold but there was absolutely no mention of the garage.
I still have possession of the garage & the only person who has a key.
Nobody has ever spoken to me about this or sent any correspondence......... I have never answered to anybody regarding said garage.

I has stood empty for some years now & I'm thinking of renting it out.

I guess I need to know whether legally I can do this ?

I have thought about Adverse Possession but it seems like such a minefield I honestly don't know what to do.

I have a feeling I could be breaking the law if I was to rent it out without any relevant details & paperwork.

I also believe the garage may have something to do with the land registry & also the management company that own the land which the flats & houses are built on.

Princess Sinclair Gardens Investments Ltd are very difficult people to get through to.

When I was living in the flat I used to have to make 2 ground rent payments per year.
1: payment of £200:00
2: payment of £95:00

The payments included insurance against a terrorist attack on the contract I had......... believe it or not !!
But so very true.


Any help with this would be very appreciated as i really am in a quandary as to what to do.

Kind regards.

Tiglet2

What is relevant here is who is the actual registered proprietor of the garage.

As a first step you need to look at the HM Land Registry website and do a map search of the location to find out the title number of the garage.  Once you have that, you need to download a copy of that title and plan.  The title will tell you who the current owner is.  £3 per document.

You could try to contact the owner (or any beneficiaries of the Will) to offer to buy the garage, but I do not think it would be possible for you to acquire it by adverse possession if the title is registered at Land Registry.  

princeofpounds

Read the following links. One of them will apply to you depending on whether the garage is registered or not (assuming this doesn't date back to pre-2003). A map search at the land registry should answer that question.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/adverse-possession-of-registered-land/practice-guide-4-adverse-possession-of-registered-land

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/adverse-possession-of-1-unregistered-land-and-2-registered-land