Are we complete idiots?

[Happy20]

We have an ongoing issue with a boundary which isn't as easily answered as you would think! Basically the neighbors think a piece of land is there's when we are pretty sure it's ours.


When we brought our house the sellers said a meadow at the bottom of our drive was theirs, they mowed it and used it, even had a couple sheep on it once.
We moved in, all fine and dandy until the next weekend when neighbour is out there mowing the meadow. Very kind of him we think because obviously he is being neighbourly what with us having only just moved in. We think we've struck it rich with such lovely, thoughtful neighbours. Wife of neighbour comes round the next day with a welcome card and has a nice superficial chat. We thank her profusely for mowing our meadow and offer to help them out if they ever need a hand, well you can probably see where this is going. Neighbour tells us it's their meadow and there must have been a mix up. We explain what the old owners told us and she claims they ' must have been talking about another bit of land as it has always been theirs'. After much awkwardness and many protesting about how old neighbours must have pulled a fast one (without actually saying they have pulled a fast one) we leave it at we will talk to our solicitor and her being nice but increasingly frosty. I think she honestly thought we would just say it's fine and not bother with taking it any further. She seemed very out out that we would be talking to the solicitor and old owners solicitor.

Now is the massive issue!

Our house is very old, the deeds were lost a long time ago. We have insurance to cover the lack of deeds (can't remember what it's called but our solicitor insisted we needed this) and can see up to date deeds from our sale with the old owners, but cannot find anything further back than that.

So YABU - leave the neighbors to it. You brought a house with no deeds just hope they don't want to build on it.
YANBU - it's clearly your land and the are trying to pull a fast one.

We are waiting on a call back from our solicitor but in the meantime does anyone have any ideas where we might find really old, long list deeds? I would be forever grateful!!

[TroubleNo1]

Surely you can take action against the seller for false information and misrepresentation. Not sure if this would get you any money back from the sale which would be relative to the size of the land they claimed was part of the house.

[WinterIsGone]

I think to register as common land, you have to show people have used it as common land. This clearly isn't the case here.

[Minniee]

Do you think the previous owners mowed it because they told you that?

I would get the solicitor to contact them to clarify they said it was part of the sale. It won't make any difference but it'll let the previous owners know that you know they are a pair of cunts, if nothing else.

[WinterIsGone]

But the seller hasn't given false information on the land plan though.

[justanotherneighinparadise]

Has the OP actually asked the previous vendors the question as to who has been maintaining the land for the last 10 years. If it’s the previous owners of the house then at least it proves her next door neighbours are chancers and she can then decide whether to try and block them getting adverse possession.

I am also chuckling at the thought of NDN waking up and finding some sheep and a couple of donkeys standing on this land 🤣

[NoMoreDickheads]

I think if you ring someone at the council they might know more IDK.

What would you like to do on the meadow? Perhaps discuss this with the neighbours politely, and ask if you can have a bit or do the thing that you want on it? (No point falling out with them maybe.)

I think if it has defaulted to the Crown or something you can try and buy it. Apparently they don't often accept an offer, but worth a go.

I think I would chat, rather than fall out with, your neighbours about it.

[Thisismytimetoshine]

No the meadow is not on our paperwork. I did question it at the time and we were meant to get an answer but the old owners were pushing hard and then threatened to pull out if it took any longer. There was a mix up at the solicitors and everything went through last minute.
This is just pure nuts! Why on earth would you proceed with the purchase when there was a question mark over exactly what was included?
It beggars belief...

[TW2013]

Are there any other gates into or out of the meadow or do the neighbours have to use 'your' gate.

[cabbageking]

Contact the sellers solicitor and ask for clarity from the previous owners.

Was this just a comment they made because your solicitor would not know about this land or make checks on it if he was unaware of its existence.

[NoParticularPattern]

Sounds like you don’t own it. Although there is one thing you could make enquiries about which would put a hole in your neighbours current streak of adverse possession related maintenance- the sheep. To have sheep on land that land needs to have a CPH number. Now if that CPH number was not registered to your neighbours but indeed to your vendors then you can prove they have not had exclusive use. It doesn’t prove ownership as anyone can get a CPH number for any land even if it’s not theirs, but if the CPH number belonged to your vendor or anyone else for that matter, they they have to take their exclusive use from that point onwards. A land agent is the person you need to speak to, not a solicitor.

[Bluntness100]

This may be a silly question- but if rights to unclaimed land comes down to who maintains it - what happens if the OP also starts moving it weekly

It doesn’t matter. She needs to have been maintaining it for ten years to make a claim.

[Bluntness100]

Now if that CPH number was not registered to your neighbours but indeed to your vendors then you can prove they have not had exclusive use

They can’t apply for a cph, you need to be owning or renting the land and be a registered live stock keeper. And the previous owners clearly don’t fall into this category, they also neither owned or rented the land and it’s highly unlikely they were registered live stock keepers. She can’t just move sheep in either,

[ImFree2doasiwant]

What do the vendors say?

[Bluntness100]

What do the vendors say?

If they weren’t willing to answer the questions prior to the sale they are highly unlikely to be forth coming now since they lied to the op. And the op bought the house with the land clearly not on her deeds.

[Echobelly]

I'd honestly leave it as boundary disputes get so horrid. If you must go in to it, consider talking to them with a specialist mediator - it is much cheaper and less stressful than litigation and has a high success rate.

[FATEdestiny]

@Bluntness100

This may be a silly question- but if rights to unclaimed land comes down to who maintains it - what happens if the OP also starts moving it weekly

It doesn’t matter. She needs to have been maintaining it for ten years to make a claim.

My thinking was to disrupt thr neighbours having exclusively maintained the land - so that the NDN cannot claim ownership. Would that work?

Get a donkey or chickens - put then on the land and start mowing it yourself, as well as the neighbour mowing it.

[Thisismytimetoshine]

It's not even a boundary dispute. Op clearly hasn't bought the land. What the vendors told her off the record is completely irrelevant.

[MrsNoah2020]

This is just pure nuts! Why on earth would you proceed with the purchase when there was a question mark over exactly what was included

The OP said it got missed but that the 'big issues' were sorted. I'm struggling to imagine what issues might be bigger than establishing what you are actually buying. Is the house made entirely of asbestos, with a right of way through the master bedroom and a sitting tenant who's running a cannabis farm?

[Baileyscheesecake]

I can’t vote because the most likely option isn’t covered. Neither of you own it and you have to fight it out through your solicitors!

[Molocosh]

Just because it isn’t on the Land Registry doesn’t mean nobody owns it. It could be owned by the parish council or the county council. It could be owned by the church. It could be owned by a farmer who owned all of the land before the houses were built. You need to research it further and if you identify the owner you need to buy the land if possible to prevent it being developed.

[Bluntness100]

My thinking was to disrupt thr neighbours having exclusively maintained the land - so that the NDN cannot claim ownership. Would that work?

Well no, because the neighbours have fifteen years before now. They only need ten. So it doesn’t matter what she puts in there now, chickens, sheep, her first born child, they can claim adverse possession if they has ten years of maintaining it, and who is going to say they haven’t been?

Certainly not the previous owners who were clearly lying scum balls.

[Ickabog]

and a sitting tenant who's running a cannabis farm?

Hey, leave me out of it.

[Thinkingabout1t]

I always recommend this site: gardenlaw.co.uk
Good luck.

[Happy20]

Thank you all for some paths we can follow. It's going to take a while for us to pick through what we are going to do next.

DH has emailed the old owners and they have sent a short email back. They have said that they ' have been using the meadow for nearly 20 years' but are unwilling to fall out with next door as apparently they are part of the same dinner club? they have said that next door did walk around it occasionally but they didn't mow it/graze it or do anything else in it. They have skirted the issue of whether they owned it. The email reads like they did but the haven't explicitly stated so.

Yes it was madness I suppose in hindsight but honestly even without the meadow we would've offered for the house, although we probably wouldn't have paid quite so much and we definitely would've got some guarantee it couldn't be built on (if that's even possible).

The gate is an old farm type gate rather than a small garden gate iyswim.

I would like to find out the owners before the people we bought from but our sellers didn't give the info in the email and with no deeds I don't know how to find them. The neighbours moved in after our sellers were living here and all other neighbours are either a holiday home or a couple that apparently 'don't get involved in the village' so I'm not sure they would know anything about any old owners.

[Thisismytimetoshine]

Oh, get a grip, op, please. I've used my local park for 20 years, it still belongs to the council.
The email reads like they did but the haven't explicitly stated so.
No, it doesn't. And it's irrelevant anyway, because it wasn't included in the sale.