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.

This. Her initial behaviour tells you everything you need to know. She's already threatened you. If you show any kind of amicability she'll take that as an admission of her being in the right. Be firm, but fair and communicate via solicitors with EVERYTHING documented. Maybe get a digital doorbell to record any disgruntled doorstep visits, just in case

You have just bought a plot of land. Why would you give away a valuable asset? Would you let a neighbour have full use of your back garden?

of course Barbara wants it, it will make her property sale much more valuable!

she can have her shed, bits of wood, tools, everything but the land and use of it.

if you are happy to give away land, well she has got what she wants - free land for the sake of a comment,

you did not give away your garage.

Is everything okay at home?

Completely disagree. She doesn't own the land and threatening to fight the actual owner for it is incredibly uncivilised

I really don’t care a huge deal about being laughed at on the WhatsApp group. I am very secure, have my own friends here, my family and my people and I don’t much care for the opinions of others especially if they are CFs or CF enablers

😂😂🤪🤪
I love it when MNs say this

So, WHERE IS IT????

What about 'sharing' the plot with Barbara? You own it, etc but you can both share the upkeep and pleasure of any spoils/produce that comes with it.

Whilst I very much appreciate the benefits of gardening on well-being, particularly for your DH, an allotment does require a lot of effort and seems that Barbara knows quite a lot about it if she has a produced a "lush" allotment after the past 18 months of crap weather replete with a shed, tools and even tea.

A lot of people under any circumstances would have been checking their allotment out within days of moving in if they were any sort of keen gardeners, rather than waiting months to even have a look.

I’m not a poetry fan at all but I LOVE this!

Do you see three blue dots near the top right of your post?

Click on that and then you will see an option to edit your post

No edit button on the app.
Can't even thank people.

In my experience, financially comfortable boomers are amongst the most entitled people on earth. I can say that as I am one.

Barbara needs to bugger off (though handled with a bit of a nod to the fact that she’s enjoyed the privilege for a decade)

You own the allotment so reclaim it. Remove the shed and plants. They are yours because they are on your property. Call the police to remove her from the allotment if necessary.

It is easy to be generous with other people’s land.

Honestly, Barbara has had a good run and it is over now. It is your property, paid for in good faith. Don’t be unnecessarily unpleasant but don’t feel obliged to behave to your own detriment. Your seller may be in breach of contract if Barbara doesn’t vacate and I am sure she won’t want to land her friend in legal bother.

Also, be prepared for some backlash within your new community.

Any one going to divulge this and help us out here.
pleeeeeeese

We can’t find the edit button please help……………..anyone!

👏👏👏👍

the amount of comments that seem to be on the side of Barbara is astounding. If you bought a car off someone and then one day someone else comes along with a spare key and uses it for the day because the previous owner was their neighbour and would let them use it whenever they wanted, would that be okay? No! Just because it is a separate piece of land makes no difference than if it was an area within the garden that she had been allowed to use, surely no one would agree that Barbara should still be able to use it if it was within the garden so why should she just because it’s separate? If the seller had allowed a neighbour to park on her driveway at the front of her house, would anyone still expect that neighbour could continue to park there now there’s new owners. No. I could go on. At the end of the day, OP now owns the garage and land so can do with as they please, not her problem what arrangements the previous owner had with neighbours. Even if the neighbour/Barbara had been paying rent to the previous owner for garage and land, then continued paying her after she sold it, OP still has the right to it as she owns it and the previous seller no longer has the right to ‘rent it out’ or in this case say people can use it for free when someone else now owns it!

It's lovely that Audrey allowed you to do that - but she doesn't own it any more and we need it back now. It's the main reason we bought the house.

(a white lie but will show Babs you mean business).

I've known a Babs, and she would sell her own ma for a chip supper.

You only get about 5 minutes to edit your own post. So it really is just to fix typos etc after you've hit the "post" button

I would not offer to rent or otherwise share the land. She has shown herself to be a right cf! You'll never get rid if you offer any sort of olive branch. Lawyer is right: business approach.

I would make it clean, no deals. Just take possession of what you have paid for.

Oh god we are going to be on the news aren’t we

We did know before we completed the sale!

and I didn’t need to look in the garage. it’s a garage it’s not like I’d open it and find a Tardis inside

Ive never bought a house and asked the seller how they are going to move their stuff out

Good summation.

Also agree with pp who said that this early, Babs is unlikely to have sown much.