Buying Garden Land from a neighbour

dfarry

ProDave said:

I am not sure if I would want this extra bit of land even if it was free.  There is not much you can do with it.  And it would make you responsible for the tree, insuring any damage it might do and maintaining it in a safe condition.  And you will be limited by what the TPO says you can and cannot do.

Yep this is the dilemma, thanks for your feedback.

NameUnavailable

eddddy said:

dfarry said:

Well £1000 split 50:50 wouldn't be too much of a problem, if the valuation was acceptable/realistic.

But how do you imagine a valuer will value the the piece of land? What criteria would they use?

If the OP want's some 'professional' input, maybe they could ask two or three local estate agents how much the extra land would increase the selling price of their house.

I've found a number of estate agents who've been happy to give their opinion on that kind of thing at no charge.

Estate agents base their valuations of property on what's sold recently, There's no scientific forumla. Surveyors would often come into the office (when I was an agent) to ask our opinions on the value of a given property.

In this case it's what the owner of the land would be prepared to give it up for v's what the OP would be wiilling to spend for it and covering the associated fess and taking over responsibility for the tree.

eddddy

NameUnavailable said:

Estate agents base their valuations of property on what's sold recently, There's no scientific forumla. Surveyors would often come into the office (when I was an agent) to ask our opinions on the value of a given property.

So like I say - cut out the middleman (and save £1000) - by asking 2 or 3 local estate agents what the OP's house is worth with the land and without the land.

And often the increased value in this type of scenario will be £0.

For example,  the estate agent would say "We'd expect it to sell for £500k with the current garden" and "We'd expect it to sell for £500k with the slightly larger garden."

i.e. Buyers probably wouldn't increase the amount they offered, based on that extra bit of garden




But if the OP wants to, they can add an adjustment to that based on "How much would owning the land improve the quality of my life?".

And if the OP wants to, they can add/subtract another adjustment based on "What's the Net Present Value of all the tree maintenance costs?" and "What's the Net Present Value of saved house maintenance costs?"

dfarry

Thanks everyone, I've passed all this information to my neighbour and they are I believe going to contact some estate agents.

Their property is mortgaged as is mine so that would add some complexity, but I'm not going to push it.  If they want to sell then I'd be open to buying, alternatively they can continue to maintain the tree and I am happy to assist as a gesture of goodwill towards this.

sheramber

eddddy said:

NameUnavailable said:

Estate agents base their valuations of property on what's sold recently, There's no scientific forumla. Surveyors would often come into the office (when I was an agent) to ask our opinions on the value of a given property.

So like I say - cut out the middleman (and save £1000) - by asking 2 or 3 local estate agents what the OP's house is worth with the land and without the land.

And often the increased value in this type of scenario will be £0.

For example,  the estate agent would say "We'd expect it to sell for £500k with the current garden" and "We'd expect it to sell for £500k with the slightly larger garden."

i.e. Buyers probably wouldn't increase the amount they offered, based on that extra bit of garden




But if the OP wants to, they can add an adjustment to that based on "How much would owning the land improve the quality of my life?".

And if the OP wants to, they can add/subtract another adjustment based on "What's the Net Present Value of all the tree maintenance costs?" and "What's the Net Present Value of saved house maintenance costs?"

Having to maintain the tree might put future buyers offf.

dfarry

Thanks everyone, just still in general discussions with my neighbour.  However I did contact one local Conveyancing Solicitor today.  I was surprised by the cost to be honest, arguably more than the land is actually worth.

I can confirm that our costs for acting for you in purchasing the Garden land will be £960.00 plus VAT and disbursements (Non-Fixed).
We can also act for your neighbours in selling the land to you (Transfer of Part) and we would also charge them £960.00 plus £195.00 for acting on behalf of their Mortgage Lender + VAT and disbursements (Non-Fixed).

Bigphil1474

I think I'd be telling the neighbour it's gonna cost north of £2.5k in solicitors fees, and you are happy to pay both fees and give him another £1k you save by not having it valued and call it quits. Anything more than that seems excessive given the hassle involved with the land.

user1977

dfarry said:

Thanks everyone, just still in general discussions with my neighbour.  However I did contact one local Conveyancing Solicitor today.  I was surprised by the cost to be honest, arguably more than the land is actually worth.

I can confirm that our costs for acting for you in purchasing the Garden land will be £960.00 plus VAT and disbursements (Non-Fixed).
We can also act for your neighbours in selling the land to you (Transfer of Part) and we would also charge them £960.00 plus £195.00 for acting on behalf of their Mortgage Lender + VAT and disbursements (Non-Fixed).

Although fees tend to relate to the value of the transaction, there's going to be a minimum no matter what the price is. Arguably dealing with fiddly parts of registered titles (as opposed to simply transferring the whole of an existing title) is trickier and riskier from the solicitor's point of view. And even if it doesn't involve contracts/enquiries etc, it doesn't fit neatly onto their usual conveyor belt of "normal" transactions.

You can (and should!) of course seek some other quotes (not keen on their suggestion that they act for both parties too - there are limits to how far they can protect either party's interests if they're doing that)

dfarry

Hi everyone, things have moved on with more quotes from Solicitors, £600 plus disbursements plus VAT seems to be the going rate.

Also Land Registry compliant plans can be done from the O/S map and I've been quoted £225 plus VAT.

Still not settled on a price yet, my neighbour has alluded to a price but I think it is too high.

In the meantime I looked at the deeds of my property and this snip from a 23 year old plan is quite interesting as it shows where the drains (blue) run to my neighbours home and two other homes that were built in 2002.  At the time there was an arrangement and presumably money exchanged with the then owners of our home to link into the drain serving our home at point "A".

However, this also introduced restrictive covenants on our property (and presumably the area we are looking to buy (shaded yellow) that prevent over building on the land anywhere 2.3 metres either side of the drains/pipework.

So it will only ever be possible to use this land for a non-permanent structure (common sense I'd suggest might include decking for example) but not a concrete base and definitely not a building.like a summer house.

So this further limits the usefulness of this area for us (or our neighbour).

You can also see the tree T10 on the plan, however the tree T8 no longer seems to exist and hasn't during the time that we have been at the property (2009).