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.

Also, one more thing - your seller really ought to have disclosed these agreements in her forms. Ask your conveyancing solicitor to double check that she did not (and expect a fee for their time in doing so). This could be considered an overriding interest in the land, so ensure there's no rope there for Babs to use...

If it is land within your title, ie marked as such on the land registry map, I believe she would need to have been using it for 12 years to claim adverse possession.

I actually wouldn’t want to plant on it this year as op when she gets it back. Allotment holders have been known to poison the land when evicted. It’s not pretty.

No. She cannot.

Just gonna say it again: put a CCTV camera onto your land!

Absolutely get all your legal ducks in a row and establish your ownership.

But bearing in mind these are your new neighbours and you might not be ready to hit the ground running on the whole allotment I'd be looking at offering a shared arrangement for this season and taking over a few beds. Maybe Barbara will become a 'dear friend' of yours too. She's not done anything really terrible - she'd no idea if the new owners would want it back so no point letting it get overgrown unused just in case. (If she's not reasonable though, you can then go in full legal and evict her).

Well now all I can picture is a row of rather serious looking ducks in mini suits with briefcases.

I have some sympathy with Barbara, this is the previous owner's fault and I'd be very clear in communications with Barbara that the previous owner sold the land to you without declaring that it was being used by her. It's very unfortunate that she didn't tell you she was selling it but you'll be using it from X date so her things need to be removed by then.

Someone should immediately paint a picture of that! Or produce tiny rubber solicitor ducks.

Haha great response. Hire this guy!

Little ol' Babs was the first one to mention a fight.

I bet Barbara will be devastated about losing her treasured plot, I would be.

also can see the OP's point of view, how wonderful to suddenly discover you have an allotment!

Wow!! I’d definitely take the shed down and leave it at their door. Then get to work making the allotment exactly how you want it to be.

Goodness surely Barbara knew her 'very good friend' was moving so the agreement would be up!
Speak to the solicitors and check your rights, then ask them to send a letter outlining her trespassing, or whatever the solicitors deem it is she's doing.
As for the shed, she shouldn't have put one up! Does she have her own allotment too?

Is this in Lincolnshire or Yorkshire? These are relatively common in villages in both of these counties, especially if in or bordering a market town.

So I know people are mentioned her established usage, but the previous owner was very clear that she ‘let her borrow it’ not that she sold or rented it. I think, though it will mean getting nasty, there is no real precedent for her using it now the ownership has changed, as she is not a contracted tenant (ie no monies have been paid) and her agreement was with the previous owner.

If she is a neighbour, though, it could get really difficult on the allotment itself which even if you get it back will mean risk of reprisals. So I’d discuss it with a solicitor and also with the allotment management ctee. It may be that they can offer you an alternative plot and/or the squatting party can stay but pay you compensation/buy it?

Definitely go back to the solicitor as they were misled by the other party’s legal team who SHOULD have established vacant possession. I’d mention the garage situation too - and insist that the other solicitors’ pick up any associated legal costs as it was their lack of due diligence that has caused this.

I think you need to read a few more books on adverse possession. 🤦🏻‍♀️

OP, you need to check this with a Solicetorwho know what they are talking about and not people on Mumsnet.

Goodness surely Barbara knew her 'very good friend' was moving so the agreement would be up!

Again, @FloofCloud the vast majority of allotments are rented. Barbara might well not have had any idea that this one was part of her friends property, and so linked to the house sale.

This is all on the seller who didn't have the guts to warn her, and not on Barbara, whose reaction would have been in shock and distress I imagine.

Shouldn’t this have been done by the previous owners solicitor to make her aware of what she was selling and that the allotment and garage, like the house needed to be vacated on completion.

Even when you are selling a house you have to get all adults who live there to sign that they will vacate the premises.

I wouldn’t get involved with the neighbours but I would see your own solicitor and let them know what is going on and get him to instruct the previous owner’s solicitor to deal with getting the neighbour to vacate the allotment.

I would check that there isn’t any other arrangements (like no 10s son’s gf’s great aunt isn’t going to arrive with her caravan and be living on the driveway for July and August because that is what she had always done or other such nonsense)

Did this woman actually understand what selling her house and everything on the deeds meant.

Do these people understand that the arrangement they had with the previous owner stopped when the house sold.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the previous owner doesn’t still think of the house as hers and if someone is visiting the area she won’t think that it will be a problem for them to stay in her old house.

I have had personal experience of bat shit previous owners

DO NOT HIRE THIS GUY (GAL).

She has too much to do with work and life and whatnot whilst also looking at this thread to see Babs and her army of gardeners told to get "orf this land"...

I am however very interested in the legal rubber ducks as I've only seen judge rubber duckies (in a judge's house, no less) which I loved, but they (judges, not ducks) are wired to the MOON, intelligence-wise, so beyond us earthly creatures.

Trouble at an allottment. Take good care OP.....

Murder on the allotment: 'She was everything that he wanted to be' | Crime | The Guardian

I have only a small about of sympathy - Barbara has had a rent-free allotment, circumventing the waitlists and vetting process others were required to go through. I appreciate she may have been awaiting an allotment space for years when previous owner offered her use of it, but if she has been a ‘custodian’ rather than a paying ‘tenant’, then she should always have operated on the understanding the actual owner could die/sell.

Hopefully the solicitors can sort this out, as it’s really down to one or both of them not checking this when completing conveyancing forms.

When buying property in England and Wales, the old adage "buyer beware" or caveat emptor, applies. It is the burden of the buyer, via their solicitor, to undertake their own thorough due diligence on the legal title. This includes the extent of the demise (property being sold). It is fair, however, to say to the seller "is this the extent of the land being sold for £XXXXXX?" and you could expect an answer to that, but generally only where the land is not uniform. Around here, the are lots of properties with bits of land here and there - some registered, some not and some a mix!

It is a little unusual that the OP didn't view the land or the garage (and contents) prior to exchange. Advice is always to do this to ensure all is well before committing on exchange of contracts.

Id possibly allow babs to use the allotment this season but at the end eg october, it returns to you or could you share it? She will have put a lot of effort into it over the years

UPDATE

Solicitor called.
it IS a plot of land not a council run allotment. It’s surrounded by other plots of land bought privately and people just use these in the way they would use an allotment. But for the purposes of this discussions I’m going to refer to it as an allotment.

They have checked the seller questionnaire and the previous owner did not declare that other people used the garage and allotment. They have alerted her solicitors to this.

I have been told I should not mess with the allotment. The solicitor is not a criminal expert but we’ve been told that even though it is our property, we know the stuff on it belongs to Barbara and it’s not obstructing our way of life (eg she hasn’t built a shed on our drive which would be reasonable to dismantle) so if we did dismantle the shed and dig up the veg it might be considered criminal damage. The police may not care but also they might and we could be in hot water. It’s not worth it either way unless we’ve formally taken steps to kick her off the allotment.

So we have a few options:

1. Instruct them to send a letter giving Barbara notice to vacate her things from the allotment
2. Negotiate with her to pay us rent for it, or to formalise that she uses it but does not own it.
3. Open discussion for another option such as a shared space

Unless there is some sort of proof that ownership transferred to her (which we don’t have reason to believe there is) she hasn’t a leg to stand on because it is in our title deeds and previous owner did not declare otherwise in conveyancing that she gave the plot away.

We can try to claim any solicitors costs from the previous owner because she wrongly declared the space was unused.

We are inclined to take option 1 or 3. It would make a huge difference to our quality of life to have an allotment but we appreciate she has put a lot of work in too. It’s a large space, larger than I thought so we may look at selling some of it to her Or charge rent for using part of itS

We are going to have a long think about what to do.