Land dispute!! Cheeky offer?!

[NewHere77]

It has recently come to light due to neighbours pending house sale, that our neighbour has around 20 square metres of land at the top of her garden that legally belongs to our boundary. She has asked us to sign over the land to her for £200.

AIBU to think she is being a CF offering £200 for the land, as I think it likely adds a lot of value to neighbours house? (She initially wanted us to sign over land for free)!

The land adds about a third to neighbours garden and has a pretty view which isn’t overlooked.

Neighbour is playing down desirability of land but has also said that buyers will pull out if land is not included and has said she is willing to go to court to claim land.

If we disagree, she is threatening to use adverse possession claim but neither parties have been in either property long enough to claim adverse possession, although neighbour is talking about getting accounts from relatives of now deceased previous occupants of our house.

Part of me feels bad that we bought the house not knowing the extra land was ours so feels a bit rich asking for more money for it, the other side of me is thinking why should our neighbour profit from land that is not legally theirs. Interested to hear others perspectives and what land could be worth.

Thanks!

Happened to my sister. She found out she owned far more of the neighbouring garden than she realised - most of it and all the parking space.

How had this not been noticed? Poor conveyancing by various solicitors for both properties over the years.

Neighbouring house is a buy to let. She decided not to sell, but to grant permission via solicitor’s letter.

When she was in talks the price was for the land, and its effect on neighbouring houses’s value + all legal fees. Far more than the OP’s £200.

Average in this case is meaningless. An acre of woodland is vastly different from an acre on the St George's Hill Estate. One will be worth very little per acre. The other is worth a few million.

At what price would he want to sell. Surely not £200.

Your garden is a similar shape to mine and my next door neighbours - mine is the one on the right like yours so I’m not your neighbour 😂with long gardens that are an odd shape I think neighbours do informally change boundaries/ give parts of garden away. I have the opposite issue to to - I have a small piece of my neighbours land in my boundary (as the previous owners daughter lived in the house that backs into us and having that bit of land allowed them to out a gate connecting the two gardens). My neighbours have said that I can keep it but I don’t intend to. I want to put in a new fence and hedges and I know that when my neighbours house sells in the future the future buyers will want that piece of land as it is legally theirs. The about doesn’t help you but it does show how these things happen.

as pp have said you need legal advice and you absolutely cannot accept the money. Whoever owns the boundary needs to reinstate it to as it appears on the deeds. In my case I own the boundary to the left so you might too. A quick way to resolve this is if it’s your boundary get a cheap fence up (your neighbour will be furious though!).

@NewHere77 I think I'd be unwilling to sell it at all. It makes the back part of your garden so much wider and more in line with the rest of the boundary line.

It certainly is worth a lot more than a measly 200 pounds. More like 25K. But, like I said, it enhances your house and garden and gives you room toward the back and a wider, more expansive view. I wouldn't sell for any amount, but that's me.

Your neighbor is quite the CF! I think she figures you can be snowed to give it up. Don't let her run you over like that.

Personally I wouldn't be selling it, it's tempting to go after a few quid now, but having it to square off your plot and give a view will doubtless add more to the value of your property than the land value.

I would be looking to have a value for the land and a value for your entire property with and without the land, see what makes sense.

If you have a mortgage your lender has a fist order charge on the land registry, so you can't sell it without consent, and they would be looking for market value at least.

If you do decide to sell, the buyer re-emburses all your valuation fees and pays all legal fees.

I renovate and flip property for a living, thats how it works when you want a bit of someone else patch that wasn't on the market, you cover all the costs, and they set the price - if its too high you walk.

They have no rights here, its yours, not theirs, their buyer dropping out isn't your problem, thats property dealing!!

I thought adverse possession laws were changed /removed a few years ago? I think you can still have the 20 year rule for unimpeded access but not ownership. Happy to be corrected though

Exactly, I've just paid £120K for 1/3 of an acre, this little scrubland plot gives me access to a site where I have outline planning for 10 x 3 bed homes, planning only to be granted if access can be sorted. I was well pleased to get it for £120K, its worth that and more to me. Without those circumstances it would be worth about £4K.

Yep, all changed, they don't have a cat in hells chance of adverse posession - it's not theirs!

Keep it and put a little decking/seating area there to enjoy the view. It will be of benefit to the value of your property when you sell. Don’t pay out for a surveyor, I would pay the £6 for the land registry document and inform her that you are going to be enforcing the correct boundary. Tell her that as she has offered to purchase the land she is aware it is not hers and you refuse the offer. Job done.

As PPs mention, if you have a mortgage, I would think that you should should avoid doing anything to affect the value of the property too.

Just remember that not only is £200 a cheek, but if you were to reclaim the garden that could add thousands of £s to the value of your house when you sell in years to come. Don't let the neighbours gain those extra thousands by letting them have your land!

I'll also add don't be intimidated by threats of legal action - my mum is a retired solicitor and always taught me to pay little regard to threats of action / solicitors letters etc.. (if you are in business, from time to time, they arrive) put such things to one side until they actually happen, often, more often than not, they are bluffs, a game of legal chicken.

The scenario here is that if you sell for £200, their sale goes through. If you ask the real price, lets say £20K they probably don't have that, sale falls through. If they attempt to take you to court it costs them a packet, takes forever, sale falls through.

They are on a looser, their only hope is to get you to sign over the plot for cheap, or the whole house of cards comes crashing down.

Keep the land, move your fence, increase your value.

If this is something your solicitor should have picked up then you can sue them for bass advice or at least get their advice for free at this stage. Ours ended up paying to correct an error they’d made when we purchased when we spotted it when we sold.

Land does not have a fixed or meaningful average price. Agricultural land sells for very different sums than residential property land. Land with planning permission sells for very different sums than land without. Land that has access rights commands a much higher price than land which doesn’t. And so on. It’s all about the specific land and its value to each party.

You don’t have to sell it at all, OP. But if you do, then you need to think hard and be willing to stand your ground at a reasonable price.

Also you have all the power, one you own it but two until it’s sorted they can’t move. Even if this sale falls through they still want to go so if you have hostile neighbors it won’t be long.

Land value is worth more than £200. As others have suggested seek legal advice immediately . It’s your land - you can choose to keep it or sell it at its value . She’s being a CF.

Blame the mortgage company.

Haven't read the full thread but don't accept any money for it, get your bloody land back.

If you bought your house and your neighbour bought theirs with the understanding of the boundaries being correct, I think it’s unfair to try to profit from what’s been discovered now.

i had a similar situation but the parcel of land forming part of my front garden had been bought from the local authority by the owner of the house nearly 30 years prior to me buying the house and he technically still owned it despite the house having changed hands a couple of times since.

I only saw the plot outline when checking the boundaries for a neighbours extension and was stressed out of my mind when I discovered the anomaly. Fortunately my solicitor tracked down the previous owner who happily signed the parcel of land over to us. I had been thinking all kinds of things including losing my house if he or a relative decided to be greedy and try to sell the bit of land to us when we had been led to believe it was already ours.

The fact of the matter was that it had been a simple mistake in not declaring that parcel of land as being a part of the property. If I were you I would seek legal advice before you start moving fences etc.

I think you need to urgently write to your neighbours, and keep a copy, advising that the purchasers need to be made aware than this is your land!

I would definitely keep your plot as it's supposed to be. It's not worth losing that land and amenity for the 5-10k you're thinking of. Get out there with clippers, tackle the brambles and put up a simple fence or boundary marker so there can be no further confusion.

Did your neighbour buy the house with the extra garden already on it? If so I can understand her panic but I don't agree with how she has gone about approaching you. Threatening to get relatives to tell lies and take you to court. £200 isn't much. I would tell her to get the ball rolling with the court plan.

Not the best way to value, since the value of a tiny piece of land with no access would be very low.

Better way is either (or both)

Value of her house with extra land - value of her house without

or

Value of your house with extra land - value of your house without

Looking at the sizes of the parcels of land, your is much bigger. In the future your land could be seen as having development potential with the extra piece as there is a squared off end. You could find your land is worth multiples due to this. Don't sell just to appease a panicking neighbour. You are the one with the power and she's come in with a ridiculous offer. If she wants it she should be offering over the odds. Not a measly token