AIBU to want to move the garden fence?

[Annonnn]

I recently bought a house and was sent the land registry info with the boundary of the land that comes with the property.
At the moment, the garden fence goes around 3/4 of way through the pink section (it's the solid line) but according to this, the land extends quite a bit further to the side in to a grass area. I'm not quite sure but I think at the moment the grass area between the houses must be maintained by either a council or housing association. AIBU to want to move the garden fence to the edge of where the land registry says the land belonging to the property is? Is that really part of the property? It would add around 50% of extra space to the garden 🤔

That’s odd. Is the line from the side of the house a fence too?

Who owns the other half of that extra bit?

How old is the property?

You should speak to a solicitor about this. If you do own it, you should fence it off and not let it be used more generally to avoid issues in future.

The line coming out of the side is also part of the fence where the garden is separated from the front area.
The other half of the grass area looks like it is owned by the house at the other side of it, but there is an access path on that side so that the house in the middle (it's a block of 3 on that side) has an access route, which means the house on the other side wouldn't really be able to extend there garden, it's like they own a completely separate patch of land, although according to the land registry they own the access path too 🤔
The house was build around 2004 so it's not particularly old

If you can afford it, I'd ask for a surveyor to confirm your property lines and definitely fence off your land, especially as it seems it's not clearly yours is someone else has been maintaining it

I’m baffled you only discovered this after you bought it - did your solicitor not send you a plan and expect you to confirm it was what you expected ie you were buying what you thought you were buying?

I suspect you might own it but not be allowed to fence it off - is is a development? Any covenants?

Go back to your solicitor and ask them to clarify the status of that land.

I have asked the solicitor dealing with the house sale (it will still be a few weeks until it's finalised) about it but I'm not sure how far in to it she will look, will the solicitor enlist a surveyor to find out for sure or will that be something I have to do separately?

I should clarify, when I say "I've bought a house", I mean the offer has been accepted, contracts are being written etc and the details including this with the land outline were sent to me yesterday, so it's not finalised but it's not far off

So you haven’t actually bought it then? In which case get your solicitor to find out
if there are convents or restrictions on what you can do with that land (I suspect there are if it’s not currently fenced). I’m not sure you need a surveyor (it looks like it’s clear from the plan which land is yours and that the issue is what you can do with it) but if you do then you’d need to sort that out, not your solicitor.

Yes I definitely should have wrote I'm in the process of buying a house 😂
Next time I speak to the solicitor I'll definitely ask her to check about any restrictions on the land, thanks! 😁

I've looked again at the street map and it seems as if there should have originally been a house built on that piece of land but it never happened, number 6 is missing from the street, how odd

I was just looking and thinking that looks like it was supposed to be a separate plot. I wonder if it was left in case the road was ever extended to create access to more development behind.

Certainly worth confirming

Watching with interest now.
Please let us know what you find out.

Def check with the solicitor for covenants etc.

Where I live there are bits of 'amenity' land (just there to make the place look nice) that you can get saddled with maintaining.

The plans changing can happen, definitely get it thoroughly checked before exchange.

I've read through all the paperwork that was transferred along with the land registry image and can't see any mention of convents, or anything specific to just that property in fact. There were a few "burdens" that seemed to apply to all of the houses in the development but nothing about that bit of land as far as I could see 🤔

Also, I should mention I'm in Scotland. It looks like land with convents attached in England is tinted pink but in Scotland, pink tinted land is "exclusive ground or drying greens" 🤔 hopefully the solicitor will get back to me ASAP with the answer

Assuming you find out you can fence it, I've you've moved in then if you can afford it I'd be asking the people that own the other half of the land if you can buy it from them - the access path means as you say that they wouldn't be able to include it in their own garden

It looks like land with convents attached in England is tinted pink

This made me smile 🥂🥂

The other thing to do if you aren't sure about fencing is to plant it with small shrubs, maybe sort of in a line, and let them grow a bit......

On our estate there is a clause that says you cannot have fences or hedges within a certain distance (think it is 2m) of the footpaths.
So there are a number of houses with the set up you describe.

You'd get away with a low well maintained hedge, but not a fence. And actually it dies give the estate a nice open feel.