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How to find the owner of land?

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C_Mababejive
C_Mababejive Posts: 11,656 Forumite
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in House buying, renting & selling
My issue is that the bottom of my garden has a fence and a gate. On the other side of the fence there is a strip of grass that runs the full width of my fence and also approx 4M to the kerb edge and road.

From memory, and on the land reg , my property is only demarcated up to the fence line.

I suspect the grassed area outside my gate and up to the kerb edge is un-owned or stranded land.

I'd like to own it !

How can i find out for sure that no one has a claim on it and how can i take it?

Thanks
Feudal Britain needs land reform. 70% of the land is "owned" by 1 % of the population and at least 50% is unregistered (inherited by landed gentry). Thats why your slave box costs so much..

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  • Slithery
    Slithery Posts: 6,046 Forumite
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    Search the Land Registry website and see if it has a registered title. If it does you can get a copy for £3 which will name the owners.


    Surely you meant you want to find out who it belongs to so you can buy it off them?
  • eddddy
    eddddy Posts: 16,483 Forumite
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    C_Mababejive wrote: »
    I suspect the grassed area outside my gate and up to the kerb edge is un-owned or stranded land.

    As Land Registry says:
    Some people think that unregistered land isn’t owned by anyone or refer to it as ‘no man’s land’. But this isn't right. In England and Wales, all land is owned by somebody, even if the legal owner can’t be identified.

    Link: https://hmlandregistry.blog.gov.uk/2018/02/05/search-owner-unregistered-land/

    I'm not sure what you mean by "stranded land".

    The same Land Registry article gives suggestions about how to find the owner of a piece of land.
  • Cakeguts
    Cakeguts Posts: 7,627 Forumite
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    The land very likely belongs to your local council.
  • ProDave
    ProDave Posts: 3,734 Forumite
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    Move your fence to encompass this bit of land. The owner will soon be in touch !!!!!!!
  • Davesnave
    Davesnave Posts: 34,741 Forumite
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    edited 24 September 2018 at 1:50PM
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    You may also find that services travel through that land.

    'Stranded land' does occur; it's happened in front of my property, where a roadside hedge was grubbed-out and a grassed area created for visibility back in the 1980s. At that time, everything here had one owner. When he divided the properties up and sold them, most areas of land went to someone or were held communally. However, the grassed areas each side of the splay were forgotten......

    Nowadays, it's considered that we own this grass on one side and the equestrian neighbour owns the other bit, but it's not on our title plans and the communal bits stop well short. Technically, it must still belong to the original owner.

    One thing's for sure, no one but us will maintain it!
  • YoungBlueEyes
    YoungBlueEyes Posts: 4,073 Forumite
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    As eddddy says, unregistered does not mean unowned.

    We had an issue with someone trying to claim the 10foot that runs along the back of our gardens. Long story short - land reg had no registered owner on their system, so I spent AGES in the library on their Ancestry online prog. In the end, having identified the original land owners (farmers, way back when) and all their "heirs and assigns", tracing people (via their wills) through work houses and poor houses and ships logs and mental institutions etc etc. That little strip of land is now owned by dozens of people, and I doubt if any of them know about it. They certainly don't maintain it.

    Just because you want it, doesn't mean you can "take it".
    The second man to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, Bobby Leach, survived the fall but later died as a result of slipping on a piece of orange peel.
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