How to determine who owns a piece of land

doodling

Hi,

You need to decide what outcome you are trying to achieve before you do anything that involves discussing the actual parcel of land with people.

Do you want to end up owning the land or are you simply trying to find out who the "real" owner might be? In the first case, a minimum involvement with other parties approach is best whilst in the latter case a maximum publicity approach is best.

If you want to own the land then firstly go back to your conveyancers and make sure that the original registration wasn't erroneous - i.e. whether they should acuallly have registered the whole area including the extra land in your name. You might want to seek a second opinion of there is any uncertainty.

If there is no evidence that the land should have been registered to you then you'll have to aquire it by adverse possession - fence it off from any other land and make access only from yours, keep it that way for 12 years (whilst keeping good records of doing so - lots of dated photos) and get it registered to you after the 12 years have passed.  You need to treat the land as yours but if this is in a rural setting then be careful making it part of your garden - if it is agricultural land then you can't turn it into garden and doing so will attract publicity which might bring the real owner out of the woodwork - in that case you might want to make it an orchard or smallholding (posh name for a  egetable patch?).  I recommend that, if you are not already, you take advice from a solicitor experienced in this area rather than one of the factory conveyancers.

If you just want to know who owns it then a lot of asking around might get you somewhere. Particularly older people who have lived the area for some time - is there a local centre where a local history group might meet, or even that is just a popular haunt of the older generation? Remember the more publicity you create, the more likelihood that the true owner will come out of the woodwork, or that someone else will decide that they want the land and will fence it off to gain adverse possession themselves.

LouiseH1

doodling said:

Hi,

You need to decide what outcome you are trying to achieve before you do anything that involves discussing the actual parcel of land with people.

Do you want to end up owning the land or are you simply trying to find out who the "real" owner might be? In the first case, a minimum involvement with other parties approach is best whilst in the latter case a maximum publicity approach is best.

If you want to own the land then firstly go back to your conveyancers and make sure that the original registration wasn't erroneous - i.e. whether they should acuallly have registered the whole area including the extra land in your name. You might want to seek a second opinion of there is any uncertainty.

If there is no evidence that the land should have been registered to you then you'll have to aquire it by adverse possession - fence it off from any other land and make access only from yours, keep it that way for 12 years (whilst keeping good records of doing so - lots of dated photos) and get it registered to you after the 12 years have passed.  You need to treat the land as yours but if this is in a rural setting then be careful making it part of your garden - if it is agricultural land then you can't turn it into garden and doing so will attract publicity which might bring the real owner out of the woodwork - in that case you might want to make it an orchard or smallholding (posh name for a  egetable patch?).  I recommend that, if you are not already, you take advice from a solicitor experienced in this area rather than one of the factory conveyancers.

If you just want to know who owns it then a lot of asking around might get you somewhere. Particularly older people who have lived the area for some time - is there a local centre where a local history group might meet, or even that is just a popular haunt of the older generation? Remember the more publicity you create, the more likelihood that the true owner will come out of the woodwork, or that someone else will decide that they want the land and will fence it off to gain adverse possession themselves.

I've only just seen this and it's very helpful, so thank you!

The reason that I am interested in the land is that I would really like to acquire it. I have had further discussions with neighbours who all thought that it belonged to the property that we have bought. In actual fact, it belongs to a neighbour who lives a little further down the road and has lived there for 20 years. I have been able to verify this through Land Registry documents. Apparently, he has no interest in the garden and only uses a small patch at the back of his house. This gives me hope that we might be in a good position to make him an offer. I'm not really sure how to determine how much we would be looking at. The location of the land is such that it would not really be viable for anyone else to purchase it as it can only be accessed via his garden, our garden or a care home. 

I have also determined that we are most likely the owners of the alleyway as nobody else owns it but I'm not sure if there would be any benefit in owning up to this (for want of a better term) and having it legally documented.