Adverse possession for my garden!

[dogoncouch]

I bought my present home 8 years ago and after moving in noticed that .my garden is quite alot shorter than my 2 neighbours. On closer inspection I noticed that what should have been the end of my garden actually belonged to my neighbours. A property Company own the freehold and the house is split into 3 rented flats. The footprint is huge with 4 garages at the end of the garden with side access and of course the back of what should have been my garden. My lovely neighbour from one of the flats said that years ago the owner of my property sold the back of the garden to the owner of her property.
This morning I received a letter from land registry saying that the freeholders from next door were trying to get a change of proprietor for the bit of land behind my garden to them on the grounds of 'adverse possession' and as the registered proprietor they were letting me know!
I spoke to the neighbours on the other side this morning. Apparently in the late 80s a builder owned both properties and sliced the bottom off my garden to build a house, but this never happened and the bottom of the garden got forgotten about when the houses sold. The people I bought from apparently knew if the situation but never tried to resolve it meaning that this piece of land has been part of next door for more than 30 years but clearly not legally there's. I do not have any documents with a boundary but have sent for one just now from land registry.

I would dearly love this land back as it would increase the size if my garden by 50%. Do you think I could just fence it off and reclaim it. If I wait for land registry to sort it out, is it possible they could give it to next doors freeholders? Any advi e appreciated.

It used to be if someone used land without the consent of the owner, they could claim adverse possession after 12 years but the law has now changed.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/adverse-possession-of-registered-land/practice-guide-4-adverse-possession-of-registered-land

I think you need proper legal advice - it’s a complex area of law.

You need to take proper advice but with registered land it’s quite straight forward now. Cheeky fucker tells the land registry they want your land. Land registry contacts you to ask if that’s ok. You say no. Land registry writes to cheeky fucker and says “no sorry they’d rather you didn’t steal their land”.

Get some proper legal advice from someone who specializes in adverse possession- start with an initial freebie phone call to assess your options. I would definitely say that you’re challenging this (even if you decide not to eventually). If I remember correctly, if you do not officially object then it will automatically revert to the people claiming it.

Object now. Contact a solicitor next week. You may have legal cover with your home insurance to help pay for it.

If you bought the property as seen, and nothing untoward showed up in the searches, I doubt you have a claim to any land not specifically included.

Whilst it is generally hard to claim adverse possession of registered land, there are circumstances where an application will be accepted even if it is opposed. One such situation is where the land is adjacent to land owned by the person applying for adverse possession and they have occupied it in the mistaken but reasonable belief that it is theirs. That may be the situation here. The big question is whether the neighbours believed the land is theirs and, if so, whether they have acted promptly on realising that it isn't.

You should oppose the application, but be aware that your neighbours may win. Do not fence off the land and reclaim it. It is too late for that. Fencing it at this stage will make no difference to the outcome. If they are allowed to claim the land, you would have wasted your money putting up a fence.

So the land registry document arrived in my inbox and clearly show that I own all the land. The land the neighbours want to claim is overgrown and disused - its the opposite of a nice herb garden. The freeholders bought the freehold about 3 years ago so can hardly claim to have had occupation of it for 10+ years . They have been trying to build on their plot but have been unable to obtain planning permission because of reduced access for emergency vehicles. I cannot understand therefore why they want my plot.

How did that get past the conveyancing solicitor?

Is the land also including on all the paperwork from the sale? What did you think you were buying? Is that piece of land shown?

I'm not sure. I've found a big envelope that the sellers left but need to find all the other documentation. It wasn't until I moved in that I realised that the garden was shorter than the neighbours. It wouldn't have occurred to me to query it before I moved in.

It does just happen. We own a flat with small squares of garden at the back allocated to each. A square beside ours has always belonged to the flat on the opposite end but it's fallen off their deeds after a sale or two. We just do basic maintenance so it's not full of brambles.

Time the land was occupied by previous owners of the neighbours' property counts towards the 10 years.