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!

Please keep us updated

Morning all! Just catching up with posts.

To clarify a couple of things, I remember the solicitors asking us to confirm if the boundary was correct and we said it was, so it is our fault for not seeing it so won’t be blaming solicitors. Neighbours also deny not noticing when they bought the house so will have to take them at their word, although as pp pointed out they may well have known for longer. Also if relevant neighbours are selling due to a break up so selling earlier than they likely expected.

Also my partner did want to sell but not for £200, for a fair price, but reading some of your posts about why we should keep it, I think he might be changing his mind!! 🙌

The mortgage clause thing is definitely a massive help and we are going to get some advice on Monday about next steps. Also to hear that adverse possession is now a lot more difficult. Even if neighbour did get an account from relative, they never owned the house do not sure how this would stand as evidence.

I hear lots of posts about taking back the land at the earliest convenience but we are also trying to manage neighbourly relations and makes it a bit more difficult that we are a semi. I need to think on this one.

Also saw a post about how it’s unfair of us to claim the land that we didn’t know was ours and I suppose this conflicted thinking was what made me write the post in the first place. It does feel unfair in a sense but it also feels unfair that they are profiting off land that isn’t theirs. Seeing your posts and the poll has made me see overwhelmingly that others do not think I’m being unreasonable.

Thanks again for all of your input, it’s been so helpful to hear about similar stories!

No chance. It’s the size of the land that matters. You’d need to be talking about 1 acres before CGT even becomes a consideration and even then there are many caveats to stop it from being applied.

Land is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, I’m a land agent.

In this case, the OP has stated that the prospective purchasers will pull out of the sale if the land is not included, which suggests that its value is significant.

The reference to values on a £/acre basis is really silly in this instance when you are looking at small garden parcels. If this is a third of a property’s available outside space, it has a significant impact on the value.

Land has intrinsic value determined on use, potential, size, condition, impact on property and a whole host of other factors.

saying land is worth what someone is willing to pay for it is an over simplification.

what do you think is closer to the mark? That £200 offered of the 80k suggested on this thread?

Obviously you need legal advice but if it's not her land, why can't she just sell the property she does own and leave that off it?

Obviously I can’t put a value on something I haven’t seen. For context, I’ve just agreed the sale of 0.12acres of former allotment to the neighbouring property for £12k + legal and professional fees. £200 is utterly ridiculous for any land transaction which is not nominal in definition. I generally advise clients not to bother selling anything for less than £10k and that’s where there are more complex issues at hand, this is registered to the OP with the land registry; it’s really very clearly owned by them.

It will be equally unfair to you if you come to sell in the future as you might have real problems if this isn’t sorted properly.

Can totally understand about neighbour relations so this needs to be more of a conversation where you tell them you will need advise from the mortgage company and go from there. Although as others have stated, the fact that they talked about going to court and the measly £200 offered means they don’t actually care about neighbour relations being harmonious!

I guess another thing to consider OP is what would you have done if you had discovered the boundary was wrong when you were buying the house? Would you have expected the previous owner to have reinstated the boundary as you were buying the whole garden not just a part of it? Or would you have asked for a reduction in the sale price to the value of the garden lost? I reckon if it was the latter the previous owner would have taken the land back and put up a new fence pretty quickly!

My god what a CF neighbour! £200!!!! Ridiculous. You hold ALL the power OP. Don't give it away too quickly.

Similar situation happened to me with my first house. The garden was overgrown so I didn't realise the neighbours at the back had taken some of our land until the garden was cleared. They had built a small fence on our land and planted flowers, all before I bought the house.

They watched us clear the garden and realised we found their fence so came out to tell us to leave it alone! They told me it has nothing to do with me as I'd just moved in and we can't touch their fence. Needless to say that fence was removed right there and then and the land was reclaimed. We never spoke to each other again.

I would definitely reclaim the land, you have already paid for it.

Get a solicitor involved asap.

Seeing your latest post. If you’d like the land and partner doesn’t then speak with them. Don’t feel guilty about buying or taking possession of land from neighbours. She’s being a cheeky mare.

I can't help but think that you will decrease the value of your property by selling this (and 200 is giving it away) from the plan you have given. Are you sure you shouldn't reinstate the boundary as it was and keep it with the lovely view etc.? I doubt relations will be harmonious later anyway...

I agree with @FourthToeOnTheRight . You may not have known about the land but the mortgage company did and it's in closed in the value of your home. And only be so mindful of neighbourly relations when they clearly seen prepared to play dirty while being absolute CF's and will eventually move even if they lose this buyer!

While I understand the issue of friendly relations with the other half of a semi, I think neighbour relations can be overstated.

The most important thing here is that this issue is sorted out correctly from a legal pov. The land is clearly owned by OP she needs to claim it asap. It was neighbours responsibility to understand the boundary of her own property both on purchase and on sale. If she hasn’t done her due diligence that’s on her.

It could have happened to the OP - if a buyer realised that part of the plot was currently in the neighbour’s garden, OP would have to regularise that before sale - and the hassle would be on her.

If the neighbour is upset that’s unfortunate but it is just the law.

The RICS provides 30 minutes free advice regarding boundary disputes from a qualified surveyor. It used to be the parter of my old firm who provided the advice.

The information and list of firms available is here - https://www.ricsfirms.com/helplines/boundary-disputes/.

You are in a very strong position, it is your land and they’ve messed up selling something that they have no rights to. Just tell them it’s not for sale (quite ok to do this plus it will add value to your own house) or if you want to sell it then be clear it will be for a much higher figure e.g. 10k. I wouldn’t pay for a survey yet, I’d probably just ask a different estate agent to give you a rough figure for the additional value of your house if your garden was larger. That should give you a ball park price to counter offer, if you decide to sell. The neighbours will need to reduce price to account for the extra cost or hold out for a new buyer if they pull out. The buyer dropping out isn’t your problem, it is your neighbour’s. I can’t see them taking this to court given even more costs and time wasted.

Bugger the neighbourly relations- she’s moving! Be friends with the new neighbours.. talk to them from the land that you own!

You need to see a solicitor urgently. Don’t send any letters to your neighbour before taking legal advice.
The fact that the strip of land in question is covered in brambles means your neighbour has not been using it, so they can’t claim adverse possession. If you can do so without your neighbour knowing, I would take pictures of the bramble covered area to show to your solicitor.

Adverse possession has been mentioned a few times on this thread. Contrary to what some posters seem to think, it is still a thing. Whilst landowners have more protection against adverse possession claims than used to be the case, particularly if the land is registered, the situation is somewhat different where, as here, the parties own adjoining land. If the neighbours and previous owners of the property have been in possession of the land for at least 10 years and reasonably believed that the land belonged to them, they may have a claim for adverse possession.

You're not the neighbour are you!!

Of course it's worth considerably more than £200, the neighbour has sold their house STC with a long square cut garden, which has just reduced in size by 1/3 and developed a sharp point!!

If it was actually only worth £200 it wouldn't be worth the OP selling it, thats the price of a big family shop at tesco these days.

Hanging on to it and reclaiming it increases OPs house value, shape of garden and desirability of their plot, that is worth much, much more than £200.

Buggier friendly neighbours, they've tried to rip you off and when you've queried it threatened adverse - so they are hardly playing nicely!

Has your house insurance legal cover ? They might be able to advise ?

You should post this on the MoneySavingExpert forum in the housing bit as there have been a lot of similar cases on there from both those trying to claim adverse possession and those on the other side.

Yes to what @MinnieGirl said. If it’s brambles/weeds then they haven’t been maintaining it. Just want to use it now for selling purposes. Take photos asap

Possibly, but its not going to help the neighbour, their buyer isn't going to be hanging around whilst that trundles through the courts with no guarantees.