Buying Neighbours Land

angieo1970

Hi
Our neighbour doesn't use the end of their garden which is now completely overgrown. We are doing up our garden, putting up new fencing etc..  they said we could fence off the bottom of their garden and use it for our vegetable patch. Obviously we don't want to spend this money and then have them change their mind so we are thinking of buying it instead. 

Reason they've said this is because we have already put a fence up on their side (the side they are liable for)  because they couldn't afford to. We asked our solicitor who advised us to put it in our boundary, lose a couple of inches of our land so the fence is ours (which we've done). So the neighbours said to just put a fence up to divide their garden aswell.

However, this is a different situation as the fence would go straight across the councils land, hence why we want to do it legally.

Yes, the other problem is they are housing association,  so the land belongs to the coucil. Another reason to get permission or ask to buy it?

The council wouldn't respond to putting up a new fence, (which is why we did) so not sure if they would even acknowledge our requests ?

Any advice as it's a shame to leave this overgrown?

Thanks
Angie 

user1977

angieo1970 said:

Yes, the other problem is they are housing association,  so the land belongs to the coucil.

Which is it? Housing Associations and councils are different things. Were you asking the right people about the fence?

RAS

Plainly your neighbour can't sell the land to you. You would have to buy it from the council/ housing association, which is unlikely.

It's also probable that if the existing tenant moves or dies, the LA will tell you to leave immediately, so it would be unwise to put anything there you can't remove quickly. They might also just send in contractors to strim the whole place.

Tahlullah.H

You cannot buy the land.  It is not the neighbours land to sell.  You can come to an arrangement to use it, but if they leave the land reverts to the occupiers of your neighbours house.

user1977

Tahlullah.H said:

You can come to an arrangement to use it

And even that almost certainly breaches the neighbour's tenancy agreement, so I would be prepared for such an arrangement suddenly ending when the landlord finds out.

gwynlas

Why not just cultivate it for vegetables if you cannot buy it, no great investment in planting and if tenancy changes you might get to share the crop with newcomer?
You could still plant screening on your own land if you wish to preserve privacy or use a wire fence if you need security for animals

sheramber

Do you need to fence it off?

Can you not just use it without a fence?

Dustyevsky

This is all unnecessary faff.

When our elderly neighbour at our last property couldn't manage all his garden, we put a gate into our fencing and used the lower half. Naturally, we didn't grow anything there which was likely to be permanent or of great value.

After a couple of years, the old guy passed away, and his son (who'd never done anything to help Dad in the garden) was keen to see us gone. We removed everything within a negotiated time frame of about 6 weeks, closed off the gate and that was that.

I can't see any reason why you shouldn't do similarly, bearing in mind that the tenant should not take any kind of payment for the loan of their garden space in an unofficial arrangement, where the owner, council or HA, isn't aware.

HampshireH

The Social Landlord won't care about an informal arrangement whilst your neighbour lives there.

They won't allow it to continue once they don't. It isn't your neighbours land to sell and the Social Landlord has nothing to gain from selling it to you 

Don't put a fence up

NameUnavailable

Surely the best arrangement would be for you to make an access gate or whatever, use the land for growing veg and give the neighbour some of the veg in return. No costs to worry about and no legal issues (although of course if/when they leave you would no longer have access).