How’s this for a whole new level of cheeky fuckery - someone has token our allotment!

[YaMuvva]

Moved into our new house in January. Bought off a lovely lady who was a widow and something of a popular figure in the street (relevant).

We were pleasantly surprised to find that in the deeds it came with a garage across the road (which we’d seen at the viewing but it wasn’t clear it belonged to the house) and an allotment plot. We’ve actually been on an allotment waiting list for years so it was nice news.

We’ve already had aggro with the garage - when we got the keys we went to open it and found that it was rammed full of full boxes! I called previous owner directly as she gave us her number (as assumed they were hers) and she said she allowed our next door neighbour for years to use it. He was most put out when we told him to clear his stuff as we needed to use it. This was 3 months ago, and only last week did he finally clear it out, and only did so when we had to get shitty with him and say if he didn’t clear the garage we would do it for him (don’t want to get off an a bad foot with the neighbours but he was taking the piss).

Anyway we have never checked out the allotment before now (it’s not far about a 10 min walk from here) just because of time constraints and illnesses and crappy weather but decided to finally today go and find it as the sun is shining here.

Anyway, when we got there we looked on the sheet of paper we’d been given and found the plot - and a person sitting next to a full and lush patch sitting on a chair having a cuppa! There is also a shed full of tools coffee cups newspapers etc in it too . We asked the person if we’d got it wrong as we are new owners of number 8 on X Street and thought this was our new allotment.

Apparently she is our neighbour down the road (never yet met her) and yes whilst it is the allotment belonging to number 8, the previous owner (a “very dear friend” of hers apparently) let her use it, she’s been using it for 10 years.

My DH, still stinging from the garage debacle, said well I’m afraid your very dear friend doesn’t live in no 8 any more we do and we are reclaiming the allotment, thank you for looking after it but it is OURS to enjoy.

She bloody said no! And that she’s cultivated this patch for several years, she grows all her veggies here and it’s her sanctuary so if we want it we will ‘have to fight for it’! She also said she paid for the shed.

DH said that’s fine, expect a fight then, and we shuffled away in shock. I then rang the old owner and she said “Oh yes it’s Barbara’s plot really she was good to take it off my hands and it would be awful to take it off her”. To be clear - the plot has NOT been sold to Barbara.

I just can’t believe the piss takery of this. DH thinks we should just go and take down the shed, leave it at her front door and dig up everything and chuck it all in a bin.

I feel like the neighbours just took the piss out of the old owner and think they genuinely have a claim to the stuff she was kind enough to let them borrow.

The OP didn’t threaten a fight - Barbara did.

Barbara started the fighting talk. She should have been embarrassed and apologetic. The moment she started being rude I would have been planning to pull up her carrots.

There’s a few houses locally that came with old growing land. Just like allotments allowed by the houses across the lane.

Barbra is a cheeky sod on the basis she wasn’t sold nor given the land she was allowed to use it, is all. She knew the house went up for sale and was sold. She should have known the new owner would likely either rent rent (even in the form of veggies) or their land back to use as their own.

”Pull up her carrots.” 😂😂

If you're still on the waiting list for an allotment @YaMuvva why not sell the land to Barbara?

Some older cottages/terraces come with equivalents of allotment land. I’ve seen them before for sale. It’s usually a few minutes walk away from the cottages and belongs to the owner as a garden would do just it’s not sited next to your property.

Does Barbara not have her own one with her cottage? and of course she can’t carry on using it without your permission what’s wrong with these people.

The cheek of these people to think they could continue to use these things after the old owner has moved, without even mentioning it to you! I would start charging the allotment lady rent until she moves off the allotment. Yes it is sad that she’s tended it for 10 years or whatever and now is losing it, but it was never technically hers and she should have planned for the agreement to be over when her friend sold the land.

This situation has reminded me a bit of a Reddit post where a couple bought a house with a pool and one day came home to their neighbours swimming in the pool because the previous owner had let them use it whenever they wanted. Some people have such a bizarre sense of entitlement

Yes; there's an elderly wimpy near me who is "popular" because the people on the street are using her driveway and pilfering from her shed and house in the guise of "helping her downsize" since her husband died.

I can't make head nor tail of this because at the very least your solicitor should have laid out what you were buying, and pointed out the plot of land, especially since it's not next to your home. What kind of fly-by-night doesn't clarify the boundaries? It's daft.

OP you also don't seem very on the ball. All the best but nobody here can advise you, I don't think.

Double check with your solicitor about the duration of time that this neighbour has been using it. That may give her extra rights

My sisters last house that she owned had an allotment just across the road. All the houses owned one.

As in, all the houses in her road.

Likewise my elderly relative was very "popular" on his estate towards the end of his days because people took the piss, gave him sob stories constantly and took money from an elderly man with dementia.

Elderly woman, not elderly wimpy ffs!

She doesn’t have any rights. She was using it with permission of the owner, so cannot claim adverse possession. Anyone who owns anything can give someone else permission to use it. Once they sell that thing, the other person can no longer use it.

Elderly wimpy 😂

Similar happened to us, we bought our house and were the first young (in our 30's) neighbours in the street in a very long time. A lot of the neighbours bought new on the street in the 1970's and had never moved so they were all very close.

We tried to be polite, keep the peace.

But there was constant piss taking with constant excuses such as "I've tended to this for years", "the last owners let xyz go on". Even when we were mid-moving in (carrying boxes into houses etc) one of the neighbours walked in the house to try and give us a run down. Saying we do this and we don't do that on this street, you can't park here but you can park there etc etc.

We tried to be nice over months and basically say stay out politely but instead what they would do is wait for us to go to work and we'd come home to find our fences painted a colour they want, let themselves into garden to cut the grass or they'd once taken slabs to make repairs to one of the neighbours patio from a bit of our garden as they thought we weren't using?

Basically terrible boundaries with zero respect to us and because they were all in their 70's and 80's they felt they had some say over us because we were young.

After about one year my husband ended up losing his cool and told them in no uncertain terms to keep out of our property. And I'd say since then we are probably regarded as being difficult - but they don't come in our property anymore - It's a shame they felt so entitled as we really did try to be polite and reasonable. We also put up 6ft fencing in back garden with a padlocked access gate - we said it was to keep our dog in but it was really to keep the neighbours out!

Good luck, sounds like your neighbours are set in their ways 😕

Show Barbara the deeds and give her a deadline to leave. One month seems reasonable but to be honest if Barbara and garage man had been such good friends they should know the owner sold up and should have left before.
If Barbara won’t go get a solicitors letter outlining the legal status of the allotment and that will hopefully do the job.
You shouldn’t be put to any additional expense either ie if Barbara has spent a lot on maintenance or a shed that’s on her, not you.

They did. The OP says they found out about the additional bits during the purchase, so the conveyancer/ solicitor did lay it out. That's how the OP knows they own it.

I’d tell allotment woman that was her bad planning for putting so much into something that didn’t belong to her, people like this boil my piss, if you choose to do something without the proper paperwork you put yourself in these stupid situations - and I’d be hiring a little digger and pulling the lot up, what’s she going to do, it doesn’t belong to her?

Oh god you're right - sorry OP

This is all very Midsomer Murders. I think OP you should give Joyce Barnaby a ring prior to Barbara turning up mysteriously offed in a freak parsnip accident.

I don’t know why everyone keeps suggesting that allotment lady can take a month to get off OPs land? OP owns the land and everything on it.

Who cares if three months have passed since OP bought the property?

What if she went away on an extended work trip, visit or round the world cruise? Would that give the neighbors the OK to move into her house, too?

The property has changed ownership and Barbara/GarageUser have no agreement with the new owners.

@TargetPractice11 this would be a nice gesture. But, OTOH, Barbara has benefited from the allotment for years, so she should be grateful she was allowed to use it for so long, and she chose to build a shed despite knowing she didn't own the plot

A month is too long because then she will
argue about her crops Growing and such. Then it will be well till harvest. If she goes now she hasn’t lost much this year crop wise. Another month and she will of planted the whole bloody thing.