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!!

It doesn’t sound good really. The previous owners pressed the sale through quickly before this point was properly addressed. It’s not on your deeds and the previous owners say they used the land ;not owned) and don’t want to get into a row with the neighbours (ie, won’t speak for you). I don’t think they’re honest.

If I were you, I would ask the sellers if they would be so kind as to swear a stat Dec or ST5 NOW to allow you to claim AP, not your neighbours

She can’t, because she needs to have had the use not the previous owners. She can’t claim it because they previous owners used it.

She does however need legal advice.

It's a long time since I studied property law but I think that @vintagemoo gives good advice.

Unregistered doesn't mean 'unowned' BTW.

We bought a house with two odd-shaped pieces of land attached... All unregistered at the time of our purchase. Before competition, we requested access from the vendor to literally pace out the boundaries and fences to check they matched with the map, check no encroachment from neighbours etc. I could understand confusion over a metre or two here or there but a whole meadow?! My beer is that neither the OP or her neighbour actually owns it, and that it's unregistered land belonging to someone else unknown.

Bet, not beer

I'd start talking to local historians OP. There'll be SOMETHING somewhere to say the land belongs to which house.

@FortunesFave

I'd start talking to local historians OP. There'll be SOMETHING somewhere to say the land belongs to which house.

It doesn't have to belong to either house.

Old meadows tend to have names....often they're lost to memory but if you start digging, you'll find something. Old maps, old legal papers. Is it a particularly historical area? Go and find your local historical society and speak to them. They love this sort of thing.

You potentially have a claim against your solicitors if you can show that they should reasonably have known of your expectation that the meadow was included in the sale

I think OP said that she mentioned the meadow to the solicitor on the phone?
If so I doubt a claim against them will be possible since there'll be no proof, and the solicitor will simply produce the plan as proof that OP knew what was included and what wasn't

@Bluntness100

Actually @MinecraftMother is correct - sounds like a purchase of unregistered land with first registration (the house). I would disagree though that there is nothing you can do regarding searches if not on Land Reg - local authority searches etc need to be done of the meadow. It may be Crown land in which case AP suddenly less of an issue and land may be available for purchase from CE.

I also agree a Stat Dec is the way to go although the OP may not be given notice if the neighbour applies for first reg of the meadow? I've not come across that issue before so not sure whether anything can be done with LR now?

I also agree with @elkiedee that your solicitor also sounds negligent in rushing your purchase through without answering your questions.

Not sure if it's the case here but unfortunately many people use large conveyancing farms at cheap rates offered by lenders. They use poorly supervised and badly paid desperate paralegals. Mistakes happen but the insurance is cheaper than doing the job properly.

There are a lot of people on this thread giving legal advice that shouldn't be.

and the solicitor will simply produce the plan as proof that OP knew what was included and what wasn't
Which it is. I don't know why people are advising op she might have a case against anybody, really. She hasn't a legal leg to stand on.

"She can’t, because she needs to have had the use not the previous owners. She can’t claim it"

@Bluntness100 That's not correct. The right is acquired by the property not the individual. So if the previous owners have used the land she can rely on that and use that as evidence in an application to the Land Registry. Hence the PP saying she should get the sellers to sign a stat dec, which is good advice.

Just a word of caution here.....we got involved in a property dispute in a vaguely similar fashion in that the new owners of land backing onto our back garden had been led to believe that they owned some of our garden which was news to us. New neighbours took down our fence, threw it into a skip and set about erecting a new fence on what they believed to be the boundary). We found out that our deeds had been destroyed and the land registry title plan could not be used as evidence of the position of a boundary in light of a boundary dispute and we were told that to refute their claim would cost us, up to the point of a high court ruling, but not higher, £100,000. And once a single letter is written to the neighbours, it would legally have to be declared as a boundary dispute when selling our house. It is horribly, horribly expensive to get caught up in.

@Puzzledandpissedoff When a complaint is made a senior partner will review the file including all emails, notes of phone calls and recordings of phone calls if available (usually not as a minefield in themselves). Anything that mentions the meadow even slightly will be of use. However I also agree with @elkiedee that any proof that the OP was rushed through without having her queries answered will also potentially be evidence of negligence.

@Bluntness100 The Stat Dec would be proof that the neighbours didn't have continuous occupation, not that the OP has a claim. I know you are trying to help here, but you are confusing things a little.

@Thisismytimetoshine

"Which it is. I don't know why people are advising op she might have a case against anybody, really. She hasn't a legal leg to stand on."

100% Incorrect.

I wonder how many actual solicitors/ experts in property law there are on this thread.

This problem situation is a good lesson to everyone to check the boundaries of a property before you buy.

Trying to be brief here but about 30 years ago after our parents died my siblings and I sold a small farmhouse with some out buildings within a farmyard. A few years later we sold a two story barn to a relative of the first purchasers. It was very close to the farmhouse but the two families were happy to sort out parking and access to each. The barn only cost them £15k. The two families fell out after a divorce and both lots moved on. Both properties were sold to new owners. The barn was then bought as a holiday home and developed. Owners used the other side of the barn away from the farmyard to park and as access for many years as another detached farmhouse on that side was on a long let while the owner was living away. So no one objected. Eventually the other farmhouse was sold a couple of years ago. These new owners realised by looking at their boundaries that the barn owners were parking on their land which went right up to the walls of the barn and in fact the barn owners only owned the building on that side and no land. They therefore had no parking and no right of access over the land between the barn and the farmhouse next door. They also had no right of access through the farmyard of the first farmhouse since that was to have been sorted out years ago when the two related families first purchased.

The barn owners were trying to sell the barn for nearly £400k and had found a potential buyer until it was pointed out that there was no parking and no right of access. It has all turned nasty, and instead of trying to resolve the problem and maybe put their hands in their pockets the barn owners have chosen to try every method they can to grab the land. It is going to court and dragging on. The land has always belonged to the second farmhouse as shown on deeds going back years and years. Who knows what will happen but it will cost both parties. Frankly, the barn owners should have checked their boundaries before purchasing. You certainly would not buy a property in an urban area without sorting these things out first. People have been known to have had disputes over a few inches of a boundary wall in towns. I am talking about a piece of land about the width of three cars.

Caveat emptor, vintagemoo

If the contract for your purchase stated that you were buying the house, and didn't reference the meadow, then you don't own it regardless of who owned it previously.

It depends how much time and money you want to spend on sorting this.
Steps to take are:

1. was the field (or rights to use the field) or any implied rights included in the contract or transfer/by statute? Your solicitor can advise you on this. If no, then it's highly unlikely ownership has transferred to you (although check the indemnity insurance to see what it covers). If there is no way the title to the field has transferred then you are stuffed.

1. If there is a possibility that the field has transferred (either intentionally or by implication/statute) you need to work out whether the previous owners either (a) owned it within their title or (b) had a claim to adverse possession, together your period of ownership for 10 years.

1. Speak to the previous owners and see if they are able to confirm previous use for 10 years. If they will then you need to get a stat dec and put in an adverse possession claim.

1. If the neighbours can't confirm previous use then you can look for some indication of ownership it may be worth trying to find out about pre-registration deeds. These are tricky to locate. A good start is to look at the registered title of the neighbouring titles and see if they reference any pre-registration deeds. Sometimes you can get copies from HM Land Registry. If not you can try parish records/local historians (as Fortunes suggested) or failing that you can search the archives at Kew - but then you are looking at serious expense.

When a complaint is made a senior partner will review the file including all emails, notes of phone calls and recordings of phone calls if available (usually not as a minefield in themselves). Anything that mentions the meadow even slightly will be of use

I know, vintagemoo, but remembering OP said the meadow issue was mentioned during a phone call, it's the possible unavailability of any such record I was thinking of

I do take your point about the way OP says it was rushed through, but just wonder if this is likely to be quantifiable?

@Thisismytimetoshine Caveat emptor is a contract law principle. It doesn't negate the tortious duty of care that a solicitor has to a client. Nor does it mean a solicitor can breach professional standards.

@vintagemoo why couldn't the OP use the stat dec as evidence for a claim for adverse possession? On the basis the previous seller's use meets all the requirements obviously

@Puzzledandpissedoff Yes good points. But it costs nothing to have the file investigated, nor does it affect the relationship with the neighbour to proceed on that basis. Nor does it cost anything, so it seems to be the obvious route to me.

If there was sufficient causation between the sale being rushed through without the OP's legitimate queries being investigated and the missing meadow, then I think it would be more easily quantifiable. If it was just a bit of a f*ck up then they will probably bung her a cheque and an apology.

I wonder how many actual solicitors/ experts in property law there are on this thread.

I'm not a solicitor nor do I claim to be an "expert" but I reckon 25 years as a legal secretary in conveyancing dealing with this stuff day in day out should count for something

vintagemoo

Well from what I've read of the OP's posts, we know it's not registered to the OP or the neighbours but do we know that it's not registered at all? It obviously wasn't searched against when the OP purchased. Actually I do think it's quite likely to be unregistered but as a PP says, it will be owned by someone. Just not the OP unfortunately.

@Anotherscentedcandle Because it sounds like the neighbours have been maintaining the meadow and therefore would be interrupting continuous occupation (unless you think they just started that day, but I think that unlikely given their actions and subsequent annoyance).