Help with unregistered land

[CharlieBubbles88]

I own a property which also has a garage. The garages are not attached the houses but each house has a garage. One strip of garages on the left, one on the right.
We have a huge issue with flytipping on the land in between the garages. We do not own this land, only the garage itself. The council keep telling us it is not their responsibility and to contact the developer. However there is no registered developer, these are not new builds.
I have been on to the land registry who have confirmed the land is unregistered. The council still say it is not their problem.
Does anyone have any ideas where we can go with this as we really don't to have to keep removing the piles of rubbish ourself each week. Thanks in advance

Our house deeds show the name of the company that built our house and the other neighbouring properties in the 1960's. Have you checked whether the deeds have the details on the developer?

The Garden Law forum is usually recommended for advice
www.gardenlaw.co.uk/phpBB2/index.php

Hard to say without seeing the layout but could you fence the land and claim it after so long? presumably part of the problem is that the land's not tended and so looks like common ground? How long have you lived there and what do your neighbours think?

Thank you for the replies. The deeds only reference The Commision for the New Towns. We did wonder about putting a barrier up (I don't think anyone wants to claim the land and be responsible for it) however UKPN have an access right as they have a substation adjacent to one of the garages. Thank you for the link, will check this out

If UKPN have right of access, don't they know who granted that right? Is it worth contacting their estates department or whatever they call the people who look after this kind of thing and find out how they know they have a right and what documentation they have?

Agree with @meadowbleu about seeing who granted it.

If developers had the land originally, the whole land is usually conveyed to them and then they split it into parcels of land which they build on. However, it doesn't always show. Near me an estate was built in the 1950s by a builder. Some of the land wasn't built on due to drainage issues so some of estate looked out on boggy fields. Another part had a strip of land the other side of their garden fences. Some people took fences down and extended their gardens etc. It didn't appear to be registered.

Someone took exception, and another wanted to do legitimately and started exploring. Turned out the builder (long ago bought my Wimpy and now Taylor Wimpy) did own it but was long ago forgotten and had sat in their ownership as residual land that couldn't be developed.

You can guess what happened next,,,,,,building and drainage techniques now meant they could drain and build so planning permission put in and obtained.

So if it is just a tiny strip then fine. If it leads to land behind you might want to be careful and let sleeping dogs lay?

I would contact UKPN as suggested. The other thing you could do is ask around locally if there are any older neighbours who have been there a long time they might know who owns the land. If there's a local history group they can be a great source of information. If you can locate the original planning application you may find the owner's name there. Many councils have archived planning applications not on the internet that you can apply to access because they are public documents.

You can’t just claim land and I don’t know why people persist with this belief.

If you’ve used it exclusively for the requisite period of time then you can go through the legal process to apply to get it transferred. At which point the owner will immediately say “err, no, that belongs to me” and you have to give it back.

Admittedly in some cases if the land is unregistered and the owner can’t be traced you might possibly get away with it but it takes many years and ownership can probably be established by looking at adjoining titles (since most little bits of land will have been part of a larger piece).

It will also make your conveysncing hell and extremely expensive when you come to sell property which isn’t actually all yours.

If UKPN need access and can't because of rubbish would it force their hand to do something to help either in locating land owner or dealing with the issue? At the moment you are cleaning up so they don't have a problem, don't clean up and make it their problem.

UKPN must know who owns it if they have a legal right of access

If your houses were built as part of a New Town development then According to legislation www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2009/801/note/made The Homes and Communities Agency www.gov.uk/government/organisations/homes-and-communities-agency took over. This then became Homes England www.gov.uk/government/organisations/homes-england

You could try contacting homes England to see if the have CNT records which might show who owns the land.