Property boundaries of potential new home - owner reduced garden?

Spitfire84

Hi!

My partner and I are finally able to start looking to buy our first home together, and we've found somewhere we're interested in. But, there seem to be some discrepancies between the property images on RightMove and how it appears in Google Maps.

The garden is really long (part of the property's appeal to us), but in the photos, it looks like there's a fence cutting it off reducing the length fairly significantly. We bought the property title plan, and that shows the entire length as being part of the property (going right up to a boundary by a train line).

I'm wondering why a property owner might reduce the size of the garden with a fence running side-to-side? My initial thought is that the current owner (potentially a house flipper) didn't want the hassle of sorting out the whole garden so reduced it down to make it more sellable? Or could they have made an agreement with someone else to give them access? If the latter, I assume any agreement wouldn't be transferable (unless noted on the deeds, which it isn't)?

Any thoughts on this at all would be really welcome. We're viewing the property tomorrow morning but would like to be as clued up on the reasons behind this as much as we can beforehand.

Thanks so much in advance!

RAS

Probably they are creating a building plot.

daveyjp

Railway line and small children?  Not a keen gardener?

At the end of the day unless there is a third party involved who has rights over the land it doesn't really matter  You are buying the land within the red line.

Use Google Earth to see changes over the years, it may give clues.

pretamang

running away from knotweed? make sure you look into this if it's near a trainline

Section62

Spitfire84 said:

The garden is really long (part of the property's appeal to us), but in the photos, it looks like there's a fence cutting it off reducing the length fairly significantly. We bought the property title plan, and that shows the entire length as being part of the property (going right up to a boundary by a train line).

I'm wondering why a property owner might reduce the size of the garden with a fence running side-to-side? My initial thought is that the current owner (potentially a house flipper) didn't want the hassle of sorting out the whole garden so reduced it down to make it more sellable? Or could they have made an agreement with someone else to give them access? If the latter, I assume any agreement wouldn't be transferable (unless noted on the deeds, which it isn't)?

A solid fence? Maybe to block some of the noise from the railway line?

Or to increase the property's appeal to some of the modern families who don't want the hassle of maintaining a large garden?

I'd also be wary whether the fenced off area has access rights for someone else, even possibly Network Rail, and the fence is there to make the rest of the garden more private.

Herzlos

What's in the fenced off bit? Is there access to the side? What does vendor/agent say?
How long has fence been there?

It's entirely possible they've got dogs or children and wanted to reduce the amount of space to watch them in, or they wanted a bit of soundproofing.

silvercar

You need to ask the question whether all the garden as shown in the deeds is included.

eddddy

You should ask the estate agent - who will ask the seller, if they don't already know.

You'll probably get a more helpful answer that way, than asking people unfamiliar with the property to make random guesses!

But obviously, some sellers will give an honest answer, and some might not. But it should either answer your question, or give you a starting point for more investigation.

ProDave

Could be partitioned as a vegetable garden?

Just check with the vendor when viewing that they do own all that the title plan says, and then get your solicitor to check that as early in the proceedings as he can.