To extend my garden onto public land?

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My neighbour a few doors down has done this.

Our gardens back onto a public footpath bordered by wide grass verges. My neighbour's garden extends on to part of the verge, with a fence around it to make it part of her garden.

She says it was like that when she bought the house, but reckons it's as simple as building the fence and waiting a few years, after which time the land becomes mine. Is that true or absolute nonsense? I've emailed the council planning department to ask, but haven't yet had a reply.

Google earth has made it a lot harder for people to appropriate land as their own.

Plenty of houses around me have done this, I suppose the risk you run is they can reclaim it whenever they want so I probably wouldn't put anything too permanent in the council land

If a pheasant lands in your garden, it's yours. Eat it immediately.

Assume they cut the verge so when they come to cut it surely they will notice?

Seems... greedy.

to be fair just do it, if they want the land back they can claim it back and then you can move your fence. You wont lose anything

I basically did this, kind of.

Same set up, property (rented at the time) backed onto a footpath with a really big verge. At some point the council had fenced the foot path off but that fence did not run inline with the backs of the gardens.

At some point before I moved in, someone fenced up to the council owned fence boundary.

I tidied it up a bit, started using that portion as mine despite there obviously being an old line of mostly removed fence posts showing where a previous boundary had been.

10 years later i bought the property from the council, and I asked that the boundary on the deeds be amended to show the physical boundary in real life... and they agreed.

It was a bit of land useless to anyone else anyway as it was fenced off from the footpath though. Which probably made all the difference.

isn't this adverse possession which has a 40 year rule?

My English law is a bit rusty!

I never understand why people do this. It's greedy and mean. It reminds me of the people who hog a sun lounger with a towel all day, only to use it for half an hour. There's no need to artificially create scarcity.

So you emailed the council asking them how you could go about buying some land from them? Why phrase it like "applying to extend"? That's a bit weird. My guess is they haven't replied because they don't have the foggiest what you're on about, or they just think you're bonkers, and that you genuinely thought you just had to "apply" to extend it!

Top marks for the poo detail OP - a MN first 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🥂

Can we stop with the demands for a diagram? In the majority of threads it’s not needed because the issue is obvious yet posters still ask for a diagram thinking it’s funny.

You can claim what is called adverse possession after occupying the land for 10 years, but the rules are strict and Land Registry are clamping down on such applications. If you think this is a way to pinch a bit of land and add value to your property then forget it.

Some of the houses in our village have planted borders outside their front wall or fence in the verge. That seems like the best way to 'extend the garden' - make it look nicer for everyone but not actually try to change the boundary.

A man near me has stolen an entire garden from a wooded area behind his house, which probably belongs to the council. He's had it fenced off for at least ten years and no one official seems to have noticed. He probably thinks that he'll be able to just claim the land soon, but it doesn't work like that any more.

When my parents moved into their house about 10yrs ago they discovered the small fenced in patio garden at the back wasn’t actually on their land map register thing. The other side of the fence was a park.
when they raised it with the solicitor she had the previous owner state ‘it has always been part of their property (unlikely), then organised to write to the park owner (lord someoneorother) to ask if the land could officially become part of my parents property.
they agreed in principle and arranged to have it inspected the following week.
The next day my dad & his new neighbour moved their fences about 2 meters further out, claiming grass and even some small trees. It all got signed off at inspection no bother.

There are a lot of people on here who seem to think no-one notices. You are wrong. I work in planning and a good chunk of queries which come in to us are about encroachment. So many people think they can just grab a bit of land and no one will notice but trust me, they do.

Why do posters think grabbing public land is ok?

Its a bit of grass verge that the council (ie tax payers) own... but also pay to get it mown or strimmed without anyone really getting any enjoymeht ir benefit from it.

Obviously the Council wont sell or rent it to you as its a PITA to do so, and theyll not have proceedures in place (public sector!).

Why not sow wildfliwers, plant a wildlife-friendly edible boundary/edging, and make it nicer for people and beasties?

Quite a few of our neighbours have done this. Started of with Noisy Neighbour (NN) who extended into a large shrubbed area behind their garden which borders a grass strip then path then road. They took down large established shrubbery and bushes. Quickly followed by their NDN. Then their other NDN and 2 doors down and finally 3 doors down. To cap it all NN has built a large brick build extension to their home - which encroaches on this land. I have always assumed that - given the extension - they did purchase the land legitimately but I don't know for sure and, of course, have no idea if the neighbours have or just took advantage of a new fence line. Don't even know if the land is council owned as it is on a large new build estate where the new builds border the main road. The Estate Management Company maintain this land, cut the grass and litter pick etc.

I'm finding the morality questionable.

Do you regularly:
Drive off from the petrol station without paying?
Shoplift?
Do a runner from a restaurant?

Please explain how this is different? Or is it one of those 'victimless' crimes like insurance fraud for which you expect everyone else to pay?

To be fair to the OP, that's how land became private originally.

What and how you can do things depends on whether the land is registered or unregistered. It’s a lot harder to claim possession of registered land. Lots of developers forget about land they own, don’t maintain etc, and people often incorporate that land into their own garden. Sometimes they get told to move their fence back, sometimes they don’t, often depending on how outrageous the land acquisition is. Whether you should or should depends where the land is, if it’s truly abandoned and weighing up chances of actually getting away with it.

Since when? You can't just grab any bit of land and claim it as yours no matter how small it is, it will become tricky when when you sell because Land Registry will show different boundries.

There was a homeless man who lived rough on Hampstead Heath who successfully claimed adverse possession in 2007

Another option could be to get together with neighbours and look into applying for a community growing project on the land.