Neighbour has stolen garden (with pic)!

[AnxiousAn]

Please see the image as it helps to explain this situation!

We moved into our house 6 months ago, so we are fairly new to the area. This is important as we are trying to be careful as to how we approach this.

Essentially, all of the terraced houses in our street used to back on to disused land. Over the years, all of the neighbours have claimed their ‘extra’ bit of garden by incorporating the disused land directly behind their garden. Behind the ‘extra gardens’ is a footpath.

Prior to us living here, there was an elderly owner, who as we understand from the other neighbours, didn’t claim his ‘extra’ bit as he has mobility issues. This means that Neighbour 1 has not only claimed their ‘extra’ bit, but also the bit behind our garden. Whilst we aren’t that bothered about having a bigger garden, it does mean we:

• Have no access to the back of our house via the footpath.
• Have Neighbour 1 regularly walking around that bit, directly at the back of our garden (fences are low).
• It’s quite an eyesore as Neighbour 1 uses it for storage / rubbish bins / extra wood / compost. The fence they built some years ago when they claimed it is dilapidated and looks terrible. They also have a dilapidated, rotten shed on it, which they have said they don’t use but have no reason to get rid of.

Additionally, we are the only house down our road that doesn’t have the ‘extra’ bit, and the only people whose garden is now overlooked and boxed in. Neighbour 1 has admitted he doesn’t own the land and has never bothered purchasing it.

What would you do?

To reference the photo - the black lines are the original gardens and the green is the extra bits that have been claimed. N1 stands for Neighbour 1, Ours is our garden, N2 is the neighbour on our other side… (I’ve included our neighbour on the other side so you can see what everyone else has ‘claimed’.. apart from Neighbour 1). The grey is the foot path.

Maybe. Maybe not. Not sure maybe is a great reason to do nothing.

@AnxiousAn

it doesn't seem like he's that bothered. Why not just say you want to do what the others have done & he has done & start using the extra bit of land at the bottom of your garden. Ask him if you can help him move his shed to his extra bit of land.

I voted you are being unreasonable because of your lazy diagram. I’ll change my vote if you post a better one.

She can have a chat, but forcing her way into that bit of land will not bring anything good.

Because it will either bring about a legal claim from the neighbour, or it will bring about BAD neighbourly relations with the neighbours, which is also not something that I think the OP would want.

I think the neighbour has been very cheeky. The fact the use it as wasteland is just the cherry. Hopefully they realise this and your chat goes well. Surely someone has had to maintain it though, at some point anyway?

Difficult to help with this without knowing the chronology. Forgive me if these questions have been asked / answered before:
What did your conveyancing solicitors discover / advise?
Have you looked at the filed plan / title plan? What does it show (it is only a guide not a determination of boundaries, but still useful).
Do you know when the neighbour started to occupy the land at the bottom of your garden?
Are you still in contact with the vendor of your land?

Have you posted about this before OP? I’ve read this previously?

I don't understand how you can know this. Or why you think it.

The former owner of the OP's house might have thought it was completely fine that the neighbour started using the patch of land. We have no idea what happened before the OP moved in.

There are countless houses where this has taken place. In most situations it's for the best as the land is otherwise just wasteland with nobody looking after it at all.

didn't your solicitor check this? I'd call them and ask them to do it now as it seems they may have overlooked it.

I think chatting to your neighbour is the best thing to do. It's an eyesore and not in keeping with the neighbour hood.

Let us know how you get on please!

@PossumintheHouse just google map it and judge the extent of grabiness, maybe there is more than one got enthusiastic?!

Probably the case that neighbour 1 tended the land as disabled owner couldn’t. Can cause an issue for everyone if land is left overgrown.

Check what?

That someone has put a shed on a piece of land behind the house the OP was buying but that she doesn't own?

Report them to the council. I know someone who tried to claim the land behind them. They lost the land after an investigation.

Haven't read the full thread so this has probably all been said.

Someone does own the land - but if it's unregistered and the owner can't be found then it should be straightforward for people to claim adverse possession. You need to fence it out from others and have sole use for at least 12 years. If your neighbours have done that they will have a good case.

Presumably it isn't registered or you would be able to identify the owner from the land registry (has anyone tried)? If it is registered the rules are slightly different.

If you can't find the owner and can't get your neighbour to let you have 'your' bit then you probably have no chance of claiming it, and they probably will after 12 years if they have any sense. (Although I don't know where they would stand if you keep contesting it or entering the plot - adverse possession only works if nobody else has had access to the land.....)

SOMEBODY owns it and your solicitors should have done a search before you bought your house.

If someone is using land as a right of way without any objections, they can claim the rights to it after 12 years.

If Op does that then she's going to have more than one unhappy neighbour. Pissing off an entire street probably isn't the best way to introduce yourself. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Have you talked to him about it?

He must realise that if you want the same as him, and he has taken double, then there is a risk that you'll raise it formally and potentially spoil it for everyone else?

So it's in his interest to informally hand over the extra 50% so tou all have the same or he risks losing all of it and being unpopular with the neighbours by being greedy?

When you buy a house there is often a plan of the boundaries and who owns what. This is part of the conveyancing that solicitors do.

OP should have queried who owned the shed when it was at the bottom of 'their' garden.

Are the houses ex-council houses? We have pretty much the exact same set up. It's a council estate but most houses are now privately owned, almost everyone has extended their garden to the back. We supposedly all own the empty piece of land together (all 16 property owners in that stretch of the street, some still in council hand). People have been in general pretty good with only extending into the bit right behind their boundary.

Tbh I'd just put up a 6 ft fence to block off his mess and forget about it. Doesn't seem worth causing a neighbour fall out when first moved into somewhere over.

Do a Land Registry search online on your neighbour's house. It only costs a few pounds. See how long he has been there. If less than 10 years he can't claim adverse possession of the 'extra' land.
Keep this information to yourself for the time being. It's useful to know whether he could make a legal claim to it.

Approach your neighbour and as a PP suggested very politely say you'd like to start using it now and have access to the footpath as all the other neighbours have. Offer to help move his stuff. If he's resistant respond by saying you really don't want to go down the route of contacting the legal owner as that could backfire on him and everyone else who has informally 'adopted' the land at the end of their garden.
It sounds like he co-opted 'your' bit because it was overgrown and unused anyway and the previous owner was elderly and didn't know or didn't care. If he has invested a lot of effort and money making 'his' bit lovely he probably won't want to risk losing it for the sake of finding somewhere in his own garden for his compost bins.

I have a little bit of experience with people claiming land that isn't theirs and I can tell you it turned in to an absolute shitshow.

SO I'd not be bothered that next door have claimed it (more fool them) but I would put up a fence with a gate so you aren't overlooked and tell your neighbour that you know the land isn't theirs and you don't mind them using it but you will be walking through it for access to the footpath.

How sure are you the land isn't owned by someone?

Or it may prompt him to formally claim adverse possession at which point it will become his. He’s daft not to have done this already assuming he’s been there for long enough - we’ve done this with a strip behind our garage that we were using but was actually owned by an adjacent business. The land was registered but they never responded to the notification from the Land Registry so it was transferred to us. It’s even easier with unregistered land as their is no need to notify the current owner.

The person I know who did it pinched the land where lots of people walked by. A cycle path. They didn't know who had reported them. They did suspect their neighbours. They were made to move the fence back.

OP I know more about this topic than I wish to! Unfortunately from what you say you have zero claim or rights to this piece of land.

At best if your deeds show right of way over the land to access the footpath then the most you’ll be entitled to is to walk across it from A to B but even then they can still own it via adverse posession and use it if they’ve occupied it long enough.

Land disputes are costly and will end badly either in terms of cost, your sanity, the relationship you have with your neighbours or both!!

Read your deeds and get any documents from the land registry to clarify what’s what. Unless your deeds show any rights to land then really don’t bother even having a conversation and put a fence up on your side to block out the view.