Selling a house with a garden bigger than showing on land registry?

[HedgeOwl]

We live on a new build, the neighbours want to extend their garden into a patch of wasteland, we have to do so too for it to not look obvious. Land is managed by a big company. Currently it’s just wasteland by a hedge and will always remain so.
If we do move the fence the garden will obviously be bigger than what the deeds show, which is fine now, but when we come to sell this will be an issue won’t it? We’ll either have to shrink the garden or we’re not going to be able to sell.

Not all land is registered with the Land Registry. Although it's been the law for a while that all transactions create a registry record, an awful lot of land never gets transferred and so won't ever show on the registry. It's only when you get slapped with a summons and the deeds that you know who owns it.

We had a house like this, when we bought it we were told that every house on the street had ‘adopted’ the old dead end back lane behind the house, thus doubling the garden size. We were told the council had given permission for that. Our solicitor didn’t seem too bothered by it and on we went with the purchase. 17 years later, last year we came to sell the house and it was identified that our boundary on the LR was not in line with one of the neighbours on paper, yet in real life everyone’s fences were along the same line. It was a bit of a hassle but in the end after identifying that apparently the National Trust now own the land that formed the bottom end of the garden, speaking to our neighbours who had the land encapsulated in their garden on the LR but had no recollection of doing anything to make that happen and assuring the purchasers that no one had questioned our use of the land in the 17 years we had owned the property (signing a statutory declaration to that effect), the purchasers were happy to proceed.

Long story short, if it isn’t done properly it will cause a headache in the long run.

I can see your thinking. Everyone else is doing it so what is the harm.

But no.

I did once look at a house though that was on one side of a large rough triangle of roads. Each house had a 60ft (or whatever) garden. Because it was a triangle that meant that there was big gap in the middle.
For some reason this belonged to the house we went to see. They kept their garden like a normal garden but this extra bit was like a wildlife garden. They hadn’t ever bothered to check the boundary. I’m sure most people backing onto it didn’t know who it owned it.
It was all this in blue.

Thanks all. I agree with you.
Posted on behalf of my sister. She’s lived there for 5 years happy with it in its current state and neighbours just moved in. I think it will bite her in the arse in the future, and I wanted to get some honest opinions as they think they will be moving in 2 years due to work and thought I would canvas opinion if it will affect their house sale/future buyers would notice.

If they are moving in the next couple of years it really isn't worth bothering with.

It might be worth while if this was there "forever" home or, at least, they saw themselves still being there in 10-15 years time.

Incidentally, there was a recent thread here (with photos):-

Claiming/buying land

Of someone thinking about doing very much the same thing, only this is to the side of their house.

@Ismellphantoms

This happened on an estate that was built in 1976 and I moved into as a new build. It didn't affect me as my garden didn't back on to the wasteland. Two people incorporated the land into their gardens, making them huge. Nothing happened and after a period of some years they were able to claim the land. It's worth a punt, if you don't mind if you have to put the fence back. Just don't erect sheds etc. Use it for plants which you don't mind losing.

Yes this is accurate, it's worth a punt.