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.

Yes it’s very weird for a house to own an allotment, is it just a plot of land she’s calling at allotment?

Allotments don't normally belong to houses but are rented to individuals and revert back to the council or whoever if the rent isn't paid, I'd start by finding out whether that is the case here.

This is a very tricky situation.

Or maybe the 'lovely' previous owner did a number on the solicitor too.

After all, she didn't mention to the OP anything about the garage or the allotment when they were buying her property did she?

She may have 'forgotten' to mention it to the solicitor as well. She will have filled in the forms about what is included in the sale, including any land and outbuildings and it also talks about any contents and what is being taken/left behind and the OP and the solicitor will have seen these prior to sale so if she'd have disclosed either of these points they would have seen it before the sale was completed.

Hmmm....🤔

I think 'allotment ' is probably the wrong word for this. It's a piece of land.

I know garden boundaries can change over the years. For example, if a neighbour has been using your land for a number of years uncontested it can become their land. This may be true for the allotment.

After ten years the allotment neighbour could have a good case under adverse possession, so yes, to echo others, you need to get onto your conveyancing solicitor asap to take it up with the vendor.

Find out who Barbera is paying her allotment rent to - That is who owns the allotment.

The OP probably doesn't own the allotment as I've never known an allotment to be part of a house sale. They are usually owned by the Council. The OP needs to ring them first otherwise she could end up in trouble.

Nobody can give you accurate advice on this without knowing what the legal status of the allotment is. Do you actually own it? (Which would be very unusual.) If so, did you not visit it during the selling process?

I think this point about the allotment is completely irrelevant to the OPs issues, so lets not derail the thread arguing about semantics like this.

I don’t think allotments work like that?

How on earth did you buy a house without knowing until you moved in that it came with a garage and a piece of land? This would’ve have been clearly set out in the paperwork before exchange.

And get the solicitor to write to Barbara informing her you're taking it back and to remove her property from it. Also have them tell her that the ground should be left untouched. Wouldn't put it past her to chuck some diesel or something on it.

It's relevant because it matters whether it's an actual allotment (which belongs to the council and was rented/used by the previous owner) or a piece of land owned by whoever owns the rest of the property and is on the Deeds.

Yes, you’re right…..

Oh, I'd be livid with the seller for not disclosing this!! I do have some sympathy for the woman who's been tending the plot for years though - we have an allotment and we'd be devastated to have to give it up after all the hard work we've put into it, but the bottom line is that it isn't hers.

From my (admittedly rushed) reading of your OP it seems as if neither the garage nor the allotment were clearly declared as part of the sale. It seems strange for an allotment to belong to, or be part of, a house/property it is not adjacent to. The garage is different though. Go back to the solicitor I’d say!

It’s not semantics though. If it’s an actual allotment then it will usually fall under Council ownership or a management committee and there will be rent paid - it won’t be associated with title deeds.

If it’s a bit of land that comes with the property the OP now owns and is grown on in the same way allotments are grown on then that’s a different kettle of fish.

Agree with pp - the first thing to do is to establish ownership of the allotment/bit of land.

But in this case, the OP says that the allotment/plot of land/field/whatever is on the deeds and owned by her, so just because it's not the usual 'plot of land rented from the council' arrangement doesn't mean that it's not, in effect, an allotment.

Interested to know what happens with this!

I think it all boils down to what you think an allotment is. If she was renting it from the council and her friend took it over, then surely her friend would be paying rent on it?

If it's in fact a piece of land that she owned, why wasn't that in the estate agent's advert for the house? Why wasn't the garage mentioned, either?

We had an allotment that belonged to the house but not really, it belonged to the council but was allocated to the house. When we queried why a neighbour was using it the council couldn't do anything about it because they were paying rent.