To think that my cheeky neighbour can't sell land he doesn't own (with diagram)

[PinnenStripen]

When the road was built, around 15 years ago, part of the planning permission was that a strip of land had to be left down the side of the road with a larger area at the end of the road as a wildlife refuge for a protected species. It is on all the plans of the road.

A fence runs down both sides of this strip of land, so it is clear where the boundary of the gardens is. At the end of the road, where there is a larger area of protected ground, there is a gate through to this area from the neighbours drive. Other neighbours used to check their garden cuttings into this area, so he put a padlock on the gate (or at least, that's why I assume he did...)

The larger area of protected land is adjacent to neighbours drive, house and garden.

The neighbour has now put his house up for sale and included in the particulars are this wildlife area, listed as an additional plot of land to the side. But HE DOESN'T OWN IT! It's a wildlife area and not his. You can't just randomly grab a piece of land, can you?

What can I do about it? I bet the other neighbours whose gardens also back onto this patch of land don't know about it and wouldn't agree to it.

I am so cross that he is trying to sell the wildlife area.

It may be that it was never included in the original development (ransom strip).

I think you have posted about this before OP, no?

Go to your district council's website and check the planning, put in the post code of the nearest address and click on any maps. It may show this piece of land as separate to your cheeky neighbours property.

I thought a house down the road had also cheekily increased their garden by grabbing a piece of amenity land, but looking on the planning portal just now , they got permission to change it from amenity to residential and then put up a fence. (I presume this lot actually owned the piece of land so could do this!!).

I have never posted about it before! Must be someone else. The house only went on the market today. Incidentally, I only know that because I saw the estate agent taking pictures (noisily) the other day and have been checking rightmove since because I was suspicious that they were looking at the nature area.

...but to claim adverse possession, you have to fence it for 11 years, then claim it as yours, provided the real owner doesn't take action before that.

OP, can you find out who actually owns this land? If its not your cheeky neighbour, can you alert the actual owners?

We have a strip of land like this at the end of our road - it is designated s a 'wildlife corridor'. DH and I were discussing it the other day as the chap who lives next to it has 'adopted' it as part of his garden. The houses are owned by a Housing Association though so it is unlikely that anyone will try and sell this particular strip. We assume that the HA have maintained ownership of the strip but don't know if he has permission to use it in the way he is doing.

Those who say Solicitors will pick it up - I wouldn't bank on it. My IL's bought a house with a footpath running alongside it. The vendor said the footpath had been legally diverted and had moved over slightly. The 'new' footpath had never had permission and was legally still part of the garden of the house IL's bought. The Solicitors never picked it up until it was discovered a few years later and IL's sued the solicitors

It's still not really fair on prospective buyers to get that far down the road before they realise that the land isn't actually part of the property

Planning permisson applications do not necessarily check exact ownership of the land. Land Registy is the important body for that.

A lot of the time where a species is protected, their habitat is also protected and it is an offence to disturb or destroy the the animal's habitat - kingfishers are one which come to mind, i.e. you are not permitted to damage the banks where they are nesting.

Therefore Mr Neighbour can jog on if he thinks the area can be turned into an extension or car park.

Solicitors' search should disclose relevant stuff like that, but mine managed not to find out (or at least inform me) that the property I was buying did not include the land it was built on and that ground rent would be due. So I wouldn't be terribly confident about that...

What a cheeky sod! Do please keep is updated, this is like a parking thread!
Love the diagram btw!

Yes, you can't rely on solicitors searches, one house we bought the land our garage was built on didn't belong to us, neither did a strip of land 12' wide and 120' long behind it. We only found out when we went to put a fence up, and our elderly neighbour calmly informed us it was his. Which it was :(

We had no comeback either, it was probate with an elderly tenant who was moving out. Cost quite a lot to purchase it from the neighbour, canny old thing.

Freehold property can be subject to ground rent. Ie you own the land on which the bricks and mortar rest but there is a ground rent collected because there are ongoing covenants within the title to cover expenses for common areas. This type of covenant continues to be enforceable thanks to the use of a ground rent, it allows those good promises to run with the land. Winner winner. That sounds more complicated than it really is. Head fried after dealing with exactly this stuff all day long...flabber is gasted at the shoddy legal rep you've had in the past. My apologies on behalf of my neglectful colleagues.

I would guess it still belongs to the builders.
I agree with contacting the estate agents.

Ps ground rent = rent charge, technically...

Thinking about it not showing up on searches etc reminds me of an article I read a few days ago.
A guy went to sell his flat in a small purpose built block only to find he didn't own it, he owned the one next door. The guy nextdoor owned one downstairs and they owned a different one and so on. Everyone in the block lives in a different flat to the one they own meaning no one can sell!!

That sounds like a defect in the lease. Searches won't pick up on stuff like that.

Or Land Registry fuck up. Everyone will have to agree to amend headlease or agree to swap! Madness

If the padlock has only been there for 4 years and SouthPole can check the title and confirm it's not owned by the person selling the house then I can't see you have anything to worry about. To get adverse possession he'd need 10 years with that padlock and he would have to have enclosed the land within his own. I am also a property solicitor

I'm interested in the flats now where everyone is living in the Wrong one! Love new builds and plot numbers vs postal numbers...sigh.

Desolate
During the 80s property boom, A friend had his offer on a new build one bedroom flat accepted. When he went to sign the contract, the builder had re-assigned the flat number to a studio flat on the plans, and tried to trick him into paying the same price for it. The price of the flat he thought he was buying, now given a different flat number, was increased. Needless to say he pulled out of purchase.

Here is the article about the flats.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/carlisle-man-tries-to-sell-flat-discovers-he-owns-property-next-door-a7173476.html

That story about the flats is a classic!

I'm curious about what the neighbours did when he padlocked their gate closed so they couldn't access the wildlife area? Did they speak to him about it? It sounds very much to me that he was making an ownership claim on that land by padlocking their gate, I wonder if he told them he owned the land? Why didn't they tell him to remove the lock either? Even if he did buy the land he doesn't have the right to lock their gate surely? They wouldn't have the right to use the gate and access "his" property but he still couldn't padlock the gate because it's their property on their land IYSWIM.

I would add your own padlock to the gate while you are doing your investigation