Garden not on the house deeds

[RJ22]

Good afternoon all,

We are looking for a house to buy.

We found one property that meets our criteria, but the agent has advised that the garden is not currently on the house Deeds.

Apparently it was built in the 19th century and the garden was never attached to the deeds.

Does anyone had a similar experience and how it was sorted?

Is this something the seller can sort out before selling? so on our offer we can inform that we require that the garden is attached on the house deeds in order to go ahead with the sale?

We are first time buyers, the buying process for a property looks already challenging to us and we would like to keep things simple, but the property has so much potential that we are not sure if we should just put this one aside because of this issue with the garden.

Thank you so much for all your help in advance.

Any suggestion/advice will be welcome :)

Rita

Does anyone own the garden? Have you checked in the Land Registry's land search? If no one owns it there is a process you can go through to claim it. I suggest the current owners start that process.

10000% make sure that the seller sorts it out before you complete the sale.

Our garage was a separate building from the house at the end of our drive. It wasn't on the deeds and cost £6000 and took 10 months to resolve. Absolute nightmare!

I can't recommend strongly enough that you have the seller sort it out at their expense before you buy, or walk away!

Dont buy until its sorted

I walked away from a house that had this. The owners had appropriated a large section of the garden and used it for many years but weren't willing to sort out adverse possession of the land.

Suggest you post or move this in Legal rather than Property. But imo, definitely a condition of any offer that the current owner sorts out getting the garden on the deeds.

Just imagine if the garden wasn't there because...someone else owned it. Then one day they roll up and want to take occupation.

You will really need a conveyancer to take control of this. Has the house been sold much in the past few years? You can check on Nethouseprices
I’m wondering if th estate agent has worded it in order to cover up, there is no garden? As opposed to the owner of the house uses the garden it has been used for many years but not sorted with the Land Registry?
I would want to know the history of how many recent owners, because if there have been at least one or two on the last twenty years then it is strange that this issue hasn’t been sorted out. Maybe the garden will never be a part, is it big enough to be a new development? The owner of the land may be hanging on to it. It seems very strange that it hasn’t been added to the title already if it should belong to the house.
You can do a check with the land registry direct for around £3.50 to get a copy of the title register and that will also give a copy of the title plan showing the full extent of the property.
I would not proceed any further without making more enquiries. The current owner must know the true situation and I would expect the estate agent to also.

What happened last time when the seller was the buyer? Surely it must have come up?

Thank you everyone for your suggestions and advice.

I can see that the property was last sold in 2015, and before 2009. Not sure what happen at that time as we just have been in contact with the EA and not the seller.

The EA has on the property description that the house has a garden and there is a garden description but then have in brackets that the garden is not on the house deeds.

When I asked for more information on that point, the agent replied:
most terrace properties around here were built at the turn of the 19th century and the gardens that are now attached were never officially put on the deeds at the time. Its still your garden to use but any occupier can apply for the garden to be attached but this one has never been through that process

Do you think this reply makes sense?

Is this something that the seller can fix easily or I should not even bother to make with the requirement that this is fixed before going ahead?

Thank you all for your help.

In this lockdown I am trying to gather as much information as possible on the houses that seem to have potential to then book my viewing when things get back on track.

This sounds very fiddly to me. I'm wondering why the sellers have not sorted this out - is it because it can't be sorted I wonder. 2015 is not long ago, why was this not sorted then? There is a story here.

The agent is talking gobbledegook. If a piece of land is not on your title you don't own it full stop. Can you check the titles of a couple of the other houses on the street to see if things become clearer? At £3 a time it is worth a look I would have thought.

If the claim is that the land has been adversely possessed then you need to establish a continuous chain of usage and the sellers are best placed to do this. They should be applying to the land registry to register the garden with possessory title before the sale.

All of the above is longhand for this sounds complicated and expensive in legal fees. Be sure you really love the house and that it is cheap for what you are getting before even considering it. As FTB I would probably manage to convince myself I did not love it that much.

@Bathonian2020 thanks for your input and advice. I have emailed the agent asking to clarify and depending on the answer I will see if there is interest in check the titles of the surrounding area or if I should just move on and look for other properties. Such a shame that the previous owners haven't sort this out and it is deal-breaker in selling the property too.

I hope its priced accordingly!

You need to speak to a solicitor. There is something in law regarding ongoing usage of the land and potentially they can have effectively legally appropriated it but you need proper advise

We are in the opposite situation with our house, an older property (mid 19th centrury) which does not appear on the Land Registry and local maps have our garden as belonging to another house which is around the corner (and which does not adjoin our property) . We think this is because some older maps are just inaccurate as our deeds show the land as belonging to our house.
But it was a worry so Solicitor Is sorting it out for about £300 plus Land Registry fees of about £400. Ish. We are putting it on the market once it's done, (and post Corona) we wanted it cleared up to avoid snags.
If you are going to proceed with this house, get your own full survey and searches done. (i.e. not just your mortgage lender's survey ) It won't cost that much and would be cost effective as it will show up problems like this and possibly more.....

Law student here :D

Ask the agent who owns the garden. How is it registered with the land registry? you could claim adverse possession based on 10 years use of it, the land registery will write to the actual owner to ask if they object. But we haven't studied what happens if no one appears to own that land at all! (if unregistered it would be yours i think under AP rules but if registered as part of someone else's land, i assume the registery can look at a big local map and know who it belongs to)

this assumes land registry has access to lots of maps and can look at them! or your solictor buys the registration docs of all nearby gardens?

actually who did the neighbours buy the gardens from?

I wonder if the garden is on a separate deed. We previously owned a property where part of the garden was on it was on a separate deed. Made no difference and we sold it on with the two deeds as well.

Maybe it can all be put on the one deed when the new owner is registering it. There would be a fee.

The sellers need to sort this out with the Land registry.

Our neighbours had this and applied for ownership. Land registry wrote to us and others nearby asking if we objected to let them know. Nobody objected and the land was awarded to the neighbours and put in deeds. I believe there was some form of admin fee but not an actual purchase price. No idea what it cost them.

This is very simple op, make the offer subject to them going through land registry and putting it on the deeds.

If they are unable to, or won’t, then you have the answer and the sale if you decide to proceed should be at a price to reflect no garden.

Our land deeds were wrong, and our offer was contingent on it being fixed prior to completion, the seller fixed them.

You do not, and should not buy without this being resolved, unless you buy assuming you have no garden. The seller can’t charge you for land that is not inc in the sale.

Right now, the garden is not included in the sale. That’s what not on the deeds means, the land is not inc in the sale.

Sorry just seen your latest post, it only takes a few weeks to put it on the deeds, it’s not a big deal, unless there is an undisclosed problem.

As said, make the offer contingent on them sorting it. If they can’t or won’t, then make the offer if you still wish to proceed as if it’s a properly with no garden, and any other issues that come with it. Ie access issues. Or pull out.

But if this is what they are saying there is no issue with them informing land registry and having the deeds amended. It’s very common. If they are not being honest and someone else owns the land. You need to know now, and their ability to put it on the deeds tells you all you need to know.

Mine was slightly different but I suspect materially the same.

Part of my garden wasn't shown as part of my garden on the land registry. It had always been part of the garden but was missed off by the land registry when the entry went digital (1998).

I got in touch with the Land Registry and it was corrected without cost in about 2 weeks.

In your situation, as I understand it, the area just hasn't been digitised yet, although it should have happened the first time the property changed hands after 1998.

The current owner needs to contact the Land Registry, with details. I would imagine, in the case of this property, Google images will show it as part of the garden and so long as it is in line with other already registered gardens it will be very straightforward. They will get corrected drawings and the sale can go ahead.

I wouldn't buy without it. I lost a sale due to it as the buyer pulled out but needn't have done so as it was sorted within 2 weeks (not sure how long it will take at the moment though) and I have since sold with no issues as the land is now shown on the land registry.

@Tartyflette
We are in the opposite situation with our house, an older property (mid 19th century) which does not appear on the Land Registry and local maps have our garden as belonging to another house which is around the corner (and which does not adjoin our property) . We think this is because some older maps are just inaccurate as our deeds show the land as belonging to our house.
But it was a worry so Solicitor Is sorting it out for about £300 plus Land Registry fees of about £400. Ish. We are putting it on the market once it's done, (and post Corona) we wanted it cleared up to avoid snags.

I suspect you are being ripped off here. This is similar to my situation. If you have the original deeds it justs means the property has either been incorrectly digitised or not yet digitised. (In my case it was incorrectly). If you have the original deeds then the land registry will correct it free of charge. You can contact the Registry direct to do this. It took two weeks for them to sort it out for me. The only irritation was that it had to be sent by post - they won't work with online evidence. I photocopied the originals and sent them - not the originals.

Cost NOTHING

The Agent will not be much help here. They are not legally trained and tend to say what the vendor tells them, without evidence. You really need the advice of a conveyancing solicitor. They will obtain copies of the titles and title plans of the property and surrounding areas to ascertain who the owner of the land is and, of course, whether it is registered or unregistered land. You must make it clear to the solicitor that you are querying the ownership of the garden in order that they raise enquiries about this to the seller's solicitor.

If the land is unregistered, then it might be possible for the vendor to apply for possessory title, though they would need to prove 12 years of uninterrupted use and that would be difficult as they've only owned since 2015 and the previous owners only since 2009. Land Registry does a site visit, writes to any nearby property owners giving 20 days notice for anyone to raise an objection. if no objection is received, they will transfer the land to you.

If the land is registered, then it will be difficult to obtain adverse possession as the Land Registry will contact the owner, which might prove difficult if the owner has moved away and is no longer traceable, or it could alert someone that they own this garden and it becomes a ransom strip to the highest bidder, let alone whether they would want to sell it. Alternatively does the seller actually own this garden, but it's on a different title number?

If you don't wish to consult a solicitor at this stage, then the best thing is to obtain the title documents (including title plan) for the property and neighbouring properties and the land in question to see for yourself who owns what.

Documents are £3 each at HM Land Registry (make sure you use the official government site)eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/eservices/FindAProperty/view/QuickEnquiryInit.do?_ga=2.250219846.1747919498.1587676267-502905271.1583352794.

It is for the seller and seller's solicitor to answer any enquiries your solicitor raises in this regard, but in any event it must be the seller/seller's solicitor who has to deal with this prior to exchange.

Good advice from Spickle and to add, it's not Land Registry who visits the site any longer. It's farmed out to the Ordnance Survey and since they are not currently doing any site visits it's going to be a long haul to get it sorted I imagine. And that's before Land Registry backlogs are factored in.

As others have said this is up to the sellers to sort, if you want the house then offer on it subject to the deeds being updated.

Our sellers sorted ours, your solicitor will and should advise you not to buy without it sorted, or to drop the price accordingly, and that it is the seller to sort it. Ours showed part of the garden belonged to a neighbour.

Then it takes a little longer, because rhe neighbour has to agree to the correction. As well as any mortgage companies involved.

If the garden is not on the deeds the mortgage company will value it without, so it can affect your ability to get a full mortgage. Is it potentially valued without a garden?

The truth is, I’d be very concerned that this hasn’t been sorted. It’s so easy to do, that I’d be worried someone else owns that land. It could cause some serious problems further down the line if that’s the case. What happens if they say you can’t use it, or want to charge you to use it. Or start to use is themselves.

As said, if this is as simple as the agent is saying, there is no reason the seller shouldn’t sort this, and I’d wonder why no previous buyer had insisted, when that would have been the legal advice.

It could indicate there is a serious problem here and someone else owns the garden.

As said, don’t proceed with this unless the seller sorts it.