Just found out we own next door's outhouse!

user1977

tacpot12 said:

I was sent the plan for the property I purchased, and I saw the big red line around the house but not around the garden, but I didn't realise that it meant the garden wasn't included in the sale. Of course I would have raised this if I had realised, but I was a first-time buyer. It was all new to me. How was I supposed to know that the redline wasn't supposed to be around just the house? 

By your solicitor explaining to you in words of one syllable that you ought to be checking whether the red line went around everything you were expecting to buy. It doesn't need you to pay for them to put their wellies on and take a trip to visit the garden themselves at £300 + VAT per hour (plus, according to your suggestion, the vendor's solicitor to have done the same thing).

I would suggest from my professional experience that the number of properties with such discrepancies is closer to 1% than 30% - and only a fraction of those are actually of great significance. It would be absurd for every transaction to involve site visits by the lawyers - many of which wouldn't fully answer the question anyway e.g. what about the cases where the occupancy isn't evidenced by obvious boundaries on the ground? Who uses which coal shed? Which neighbours get territorial about bits of lawn or parking spaces?