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.

I disagree. It's entirely relevant to understand the actual terms of what is being disputed and not pedantry, as it would be if the argument was over a pond vs a pool or a shed vs a Hut or whatever.

The actual definition of an "allotment" from cambridge dictionary is "a small piece of ground in or just outside a town that a person rents for growing vegetables, fruits, or flowers"

Therefore it is completely relevant whether the "normal" definition of an allotment as land rented from the council for thar specificpurpose applied here, as that would suggest OP might not be entitled to it and the old owner just had customary use which expired when she left the property, compared to whether the title deeds just list it as land belonging to the properly, which might have previously been used to grow things on but is essentially just land that could be used for other purpose.

So it is specified in your deeds, and you definitely legally own it? You're going to need something a bit more specific than "it was associated with the property in the past".

Once you have established the facts and legality of the situation, you would still be awful people if you cleared and took over the allotment immediately. The poor woman has done all the work for this year already.

Also, be prepared for your neighbours to hate you.

Apparently when the previous owner bought the house it came with it so I’m assuming it’s some sort of old inherited deed.

IL once had a fill in house with a yard - but further back away from the house via some rights of way was a larger plot meant to be their garden. FIIL used to use it as allotment.

FIL also rented otehr bits of neighbour large gardens - for chickens and veg growing - though those agreements often went south in end and led to bad blood.

It’s a plot on a site with other plots and they are all allotment-like.

I haven’t read everything but from what I know of allotments you rent your plot from the council and if you don’t use it you lose it, so I would imagine the previous owner has effectively given up her right to the plot to her friend. I’d be astonished if she was actually allowed to sell on her allotment to you. Glad you finally managed to reclaim your garage but I can imagine this one will be much more delicate!

Are both the garage and "allotment" on your title register at the LR? I assume they won't have updated the ownership information yet, but it should have the old one online still

Doesn’t sound as though the OP would be able to cope with maintaining an allotment, they aren’t for strolling down to on sunny days ! For your own peace of mind OP I would try to get to the bottom of it, I suspect as most people do, that the allotment was originally rented from the council, your vendor stopped using it ( I wonder when her husband died? Could be part of the story) and Barbara took it over and has cared for it ever since so people have forgotten whose allotment it used to be. I would then let it go.

A friend of mine did a similar thing, took over someone’s abandoned and neglected allotment by a mutual agreement, technically the allotment is in the other persons name as they are like gold dust and my friend would be about 90 before her name came up on the list, she pays the other person the annual fee and tells anyone who asks on the site that she is “ helping” with the allotment work.

Regardless of what it's really called (allotment vs plot of land etc), it is on OP's deeds. She purchased the house which includes the plot and the garage. They are owned by her now.

Perhaps Babs will have some claim over the land since she's been using it for 10 years? I wonder if any claim will become invalid since the land has been sold without any parties seemingly in the know (Op & Babs).

I do think you and your DH could have handled the situation differently. I understand that you had just been through this with the garage, but Babs is a different person who, from her POV, had two people show up and tell her she has to shift out of the blue.

That’s how council allotments look and work!

That doesn't clarify anything.

Does the land belong to the council, and the previous owner "inherited" use of the allotment along with your property but then ceded it to someone else who now pays rent on it? Or is it on your title deeds as land you own? This is kind of an important distinction.

It was. We found out during the conveyancing process, as I said in the OP. We just didn’t know upon viewing the property

This is a very strange situation.

I would try to go about it nicely first, go and speak to her again and say sorry about how the coversation earlier went, it was a surprise to find her on the allotment, and that you're happy to give her a few weeks to move things.
If her response is still "I'm not moving" just say "sorry it sounds like this was a surprise to you too, still I'll give it 4 weeks for you to process it and get things moved before we clear and use our patch. I hope we can move past this in a friendly way once the surprise has passed.'

If she's been occupying it with the old owners permission then adverse possession / squatting etc doesn't apply.

You're going to need a solicitors letter to the old owner because they haven't given vacant possession, and you'll probably need a solicitors letter to the woman occupying the allotment. It's not you she should be angry with, it's the old owner for selling the allotment out from under her!

I'd also word it that way if you speak to her again, not 'we own it' or 'we bought it' but 'Mrs X sold the allotment to us'. I know it's semantics but hopefully will clarify that it's not you that's done anything wrong here!

Agree that the kind thing for you to do, if you want to be kind, is to give her to the end of the growing season. You could also offer to buy the standing crops from her if you don't want to wait. Did she not know the house was being sold?! Maybe she thought the neighbour wasn't selling the allotment too. Quite bizarre.

This should be in your property purchase questionnaire, is it vacant possession? If seller has indicated yes, you need to go back to your solicitor.

Well it’s your land with a squatter on it. She didn’t give you the property vacant, so shouldn’t really have received the cash. I would imagine a couple of letters from the solicitor will sort it. I’d want the woman gardening on my land out immediately.

Go onto the land registry map and put a pin in where the plot is. That will then bring up the title number and the property address of that property and you will be able to see whether it falls within the title that you purchased. It's free and easy.

I’ll check to see if the garage was advertised, it may have been and we didn’t notice, it is in the deeds.

If it's not a council allotment then things get very murky and it could well belong to the posters house. There are such things as private allotments - I have a council one, but my colleague has a private one.
My other half has a garden at the back of his house and also a garden at the side. It wasn't until he went through the deeds with his solicitor that he found out that the one at the side is a "hanging" garden and it's basically there for all his neighbours who don't have gardens to hang out their washing. He isn't supposed to plant it out, but has an obligation to keep the grass short. He's fine with it as he's not a gardener, but it was quite a surprise.

Honestly we were trying to keep the peace and not piss our neighbours off immediately but it got too much after several months of very little being done!

I may have missed this, OP, but exactly what does it say on the deeds about the plot of land/allotment?

It would be mostly DH using it, but he’s spent the last few weeks recovering from a nasty bout of pneumonia hence is being busy and limited with time as I’ve had to do everything with kids, life admin etc. but he’s a lot better now and he will make good use of an allotment (or whatever it’s called!)

This reads like a question from a property law exam.

I'd be calling your solicitor OP.

I think the length of time for adverse possession in the UK is 10 years, but it's not adverse possession if they had the owners permission.

It’s on the title deeds but as I’ve said I’m waiting for the solicitor to clarify absolutely that this does mean it’s a plot of land not a rented allotment