'Jointly Owned' Land

[HidingInTheKitchen]

We moved into our new house about a year ago, since living here one of our lovely neighbours mentioned that every property jointly owns the land leading into our cul de sac. It's not very much but overgrown hedges about 10 metres either side before getting to the properties. However it was relevant as it's had interest in the past and apparently every owner would have to agree to it being sold or it doesn't happen.

Nothing about this land came up during our house purchase (I've checked all the papers and the deed/register). I will contact our solicitor tomorrow who dealt with the sale but wondered if anyone has any insight into this or has experience? It isn't a private road either!

Adding a little bump!!

You can a map search of the gov.uk Land Registry website to locate the title register and plan for this piece of land and see what that states re: ownership. It's possible it was somehow omitted from the transaction when you purchased the house, but you may be able to rectify things.

Thank you wowfudge I didn’t know you could do that. Will try that 👍🏻

Btw - it's possible it isn't registered land and the nature of the shared ownership is such that a transfer from the vendors of your house to you wouldn't require registration.

I found the title deed and the land is owned by some of the properties but not all as was verbally told to us, one of the owners is the previous owner of our house. It is their name and not 'the owner of XX property'. This appears to me that we do not own the land so have asked our solicitor to clarify. Possible awkward neighbour chat in the not so distant future!

Interesting - they may have chosen to hold onto their interest in the land in the hope someone may want to buy it in the future. We had something similar when we bought our house.

Why is it an awkward neighbour chat? You don't appear to own part of the land but that's not really an issue is it?

Because our neighbour believes we do own a share in it and is asking us for money for some work to be done on the land (sorry I didn't add that bit before so my 'awkward neighbour chat' comment didn't make sense!)

Interesting - they may have chosen to hold onto their interest in the land in the hope someone may want to buy it in the future. We had something similar when we bought our house

Thanks for your help wowfudge. Spoke to our solicitor who confirms we don't own the land. Solicitor is going to recheck their end on any correspondence too. In the meantime I am going to see what our neighbour's understanding is but also to confirm that as we don't own it then we wouldn't be paying out for the work.

Simplest way to do that is to give the neighbour a copy of the Land Registry title documents.

As it's a separate title, you would have incurred additional fees when you bought the house if you had bought their interest in the piece of land too.

Simplest way to do that is to give the neighbour a copy of the Land Registry title documents

Thanks - yes I thought I would print those off to show the neighbours!