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Original poster

Does anyone know about that law where you can claim land after "x years" of tending it ?

17 replies

scatterbrain · 06/05/2008 10:31

Our house is open onto parish council land - the house has been here 7 years and we've been here almost a year - the previous owners gardened it - there are lots of planted shrubs and flowers - and we have continued this. We have also planted more trees etc. The PC never come near it - or haven't in 10 mths anyway ! They certainly don't "do" anything to it ! They do mow the neighbouring areas - but not "our" bit !

Someone mentioned to me the other day that after 10 years we can claim the land as our own ?

Does anyone know if that's true ? what the law is called and how we do it ?

Many thanks

OP posts:

edam · 06/05/2008 10:32

it's called adverse possession, IIRC, and I think it's 12 years.

Original poster

scatterbrain · 06/05/2008 10:33

Gosh that was quick edam - thank you !!! And congratulations on winning the holiday too !!

Right - am off to google adverse possession !

Thank you !

OP posts:

littlepinkpixie · 06/05/2008 10:37

I think it was 12 years, but now 10, see here:

link

edam · 06/05/2008 10:38

Thank you! Sometimes my addiction to homebuildng magazines pays off. And thanks re. competition, am sooooo excited esp. as dh is out of work atm so we weren't going to have a holiday this year. Now I have a reason to renew our passports!

littlepinkpixie · 06/05/2008 10:39

Ooops sorry, didnt read that properly, is still 12 years but you can apply for it after 10.

Will shut up now....

edam · 06/05/2008 10:39

wiki seems to be talking about the US, though.

littlepinkpixie · 06/05/2008 10:40

If you read down the page there is an England and Wales paragraph

Original poster

scatterbrain · 06/05/2008 10:44

Oooh - all sounds a bit hostile !!! Sounds like you need to permanently fence it off - but we can't do that as a nosey parish councillor lives across the lane and will notice that straight away !!!

I just wish they would let us buy it ! It's no good to anyone but us !

Oh well - for now we have an extra big garden for free I guess !

Thanks for your help !

OP posts:

Fizzylemonade · 06/05/2008 11:06

I believe that previously you automatically gained the land in question after 12 years despite it still being resgistered to the registered owner and when you look at title deeds it still shows the original layouts and boundaries.

However the Human Rights Act put an end to this as it was claimed (and rightly so) that you couldn't take something which belonged to someone else. The mother of all court battles ensued over a huge piece of land worth some £20 million pounds and the registered owner won his case. Case law was set and Land Registry changed their literature.

So now after 10 years you can apply to have the land and Land Registry will contact the registered owner to tell them that someone is trying to take the land. The owner has 2 years to register their disapproval. If they don't then the land then becomes registered to you.

This then stops someone taking land without the owner's knowledge (say if the house was rented out and the owners lived at the other end of the country and were therefore not aware of someone nicking their land)

sitdownpleasegeorge · 06/05/2008 15:36

Would you really have no qualms about trying to benefit at the expense of a parish council.

Parish Council land is usually held by the PC for the benefit of the parish community. (You do run the risk of being ostracised locally when it becomes apparent what you are planning/attempting).

Smacks a bit of shoplifting from your local charity shop.

edam · 06/05/2008 16:09

I'd approach them and offer to buy the land, personally. If they don't need it and haven't used it for years then I can't see why they would object.

FWIW my MIL rents part of her garden from British Rail (it backs onto a railway embankment) - has done for 40 years with no problems at all at a peppercorn rent.

Original poster

scatterbrain · 07/05/2008 12:56

Last owners asked to buy it off PC and they said No - not sure if its because he was a pratt though ?

Am going to get in touch with them and make friends I think and then ask in a few years !

Land is completely enclosed - has no benefit to parish whatsoever - it is effectively our garden except we don't own it ! No footpaths or access at all - no one would miss it and you couldn't build on it as it is too boggy - so we wouldn't gain a lot either way ! It would just be CLEAR who owned and was responsible for it!

As it stands I feel like PC could come in and tear up all the new plants if they had a mind too - we could alwasy fence our garden in and ignore the PC land - but it would soon become a wilderness if we did.

I don't think the PC even know it's theirs really !

Hardly like shoplifting from a charity shop is it ?? To be honest ??? bit OTT !!!

OP posts:

sitdownpleasegeorge · 07/05/2008 13:15

Parish Council members ususally run the Parish Council in their free time (i.e. do not get paid). The land will have been donated to the PC in the past or acquired with donated funds for some reason so I do see it as trying to acquire for nothing and by stealth, assets previously donated to a charitable organisation.

Getting involved if you have something to offer the committee in terms of time, resources is a nice idea but don't think they won't suspect where you are coming from.

Perhaps you could offer to buy some land that is adjacent to existing PC land and then do a swap.

It does seem odd that they have turned down requests to sell the land, how big is the plot and how is the land accessed ? Is there an access via a gateway or entrance onto a road and would the plot acomodate a small house ? Are there agricultural restrictions on the land ?

fridayschild · 07/05/2008 20:11

You need to fence it if you want to claim adverse possesion.

The Land Registry website will be more reliable than wiki. this is aimed at lawyers but gives you better guidance.

sherby · 07/05/2008 20:19

We rent our house and the garden is twice the length of all our neighbours because the owners father tended to the strip of woods behind the garden for years and years and it eventually became his.

Apparently until he died he was tending the woods to the left and right too so that he could claim that . Its owned by a sports club but is not looked after loads of trees fallen down and its all just ignored.

BigBadMouse · 07/05/2008 20:35

I remember reading a few years ago about someone who became the owner of part of a track that they had been using for 25 years -they had to prove that the residents of the house had been using it for that long to access the house but once they did it became theirs - not sure if that is any help to you.

I'm assuming it is not the same law as it was defintely 25 years (then anyway) and they only had to prove they had been using it - not tending it

notnigella · 07/05/2008 20:35

we lost part of our garden to the neighbour behind us, who claimed that he had "always" maintained it. we went legal and it was no good - because he claimed that he had maintained the land for more than 12 years. as this took us back to before we bought the house - and we bought from an estate as owner had died and therefore couldnt prove otherwise, he got to keep it. am still fuming, several years later!

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