Please Help: Boundary Issue

[OopsISaidItAgain]

Hi there,

I have spent the best part of 2 days searching the internet to no avail so I am hopeful somebody here can offer me some much needed advice on an issue which is consuming my thoughts at the moment!

I inherited a house from my parents 2 years ago due to them passing away.They purchased the property in 2002. Upon listing the house for sale, there have been several issues which have delayed the process and in turn has resulted in 3 sales falling through.

We now have a buyer who has been patiently waiting on completion for 5 months. Issue after issue has arisen but our Conveyancer reassured us all was in hand.

The latest development which has occurred is that when the property was bought by my parents, there was an admin error and the front and back gardens were not included on the transfer of part (I'm not overly familiar with the terminology, just repeating what I have been informed of).
The issue we are now facing is, we are told that despite the property being sold including the gardens, because of this error, the gardens do not belong to us, they belong to the housing association and we only own the property itself. We have been advised by our conveyancer that the land containing the gardens will need to be valued and we will then have to buy the land from the Housing Association before we can sell the property.

We could of course sell the house without the gardens but realistically, this isn't going to happen. Nobody will want to purchase a house with those restrictions.

Can anybody offer any advice whatsoever or even point me in a direction of help? I am in despair. The property has been empty over a year and I just want it to be sold so somebody else can start their life in there and it isn't left empty any longer. It isn't a monetary issue, the reason for the sale is the emotional connection I have with the house and whilst it remains in my possession, I cannot get closure over the loss of my parents.

Thank you.

First thing todo is Get in touch with the housing association and ask for an explanation from them how big are the gardens an can they actually do anything with them? Chances are the garden is absolutely no use to housing association an if you have to buy it you will not pay very much for it. They can't give land away but if its no good to them they can sell it for buttons. Hope you get it sorted

Whose was this admin error back in 2002? Not convinced that someone else’s error should result in costing you money now. I’d expect whoever made the error (the solicitor making the land registry entry?) to be correcting it, tbh, if they’re still in business. May be naïve.

Have you spoken to thr housing association? Do you have evidence it was an error? Ie previous deeds? If so contact them and they may willing to just have it re drawn.

I don’t understand though how they have become the property of the ha. Even if the deeds were wrong it would just be unowned land. How did they go from being missed out the deeds to actually being owned by another party?

I’d expect whoever made the error (the solicitor making the land registry entry?) to be correcting it

Sadly it is the parents, you’re given your deeds to check before the sale proceeds so the parents would have had to formally agree that the deeds, minus the gardens were correct.

Did your parents buy the house from the housing association?

Doubt the A even existed back in 2002 but you really do have to trawl back through the past sale docs. I'd also be looking at the land registry as the previous owners (before your parents) would have had that whole parcel of land presumably, ie house and gardens. I don;t understand how it could have been broken up.

Did your parents buy the house from the housing association?

Good question.

the parents would have had to formally agree that the deeds, minus the gardens were correct
That doesn’t plausibly sound like something they would have knowingly agreed to, though - I’d expect the solicitor to have solid evidence that they did if that’s the case, otherwise surely there is a complaint against the solicitor here. Clearly it’s highly unusual to not include the garden in the sale, it must have been highlighted to them if it was agreed to. Otherwise why do we pay solicitors to do all this for us?!?

Thank you all for your replies.

My Conveyancer has been in contact with the HA throughout the sale process as initially it was flagged up as a small boundary issue which could easily be rectified with a few clauses entered into a TP1? That then progressed into being a huge issue when the HA consulted their solicitors and they have said it’s actually the whole of both gardens which don’t belong to us.

I assume that the above means that this means they belong to the HA as they were the previous owners before my parents?

I have attempted to find out more via land registry but unsure what I’m supposed to be looking for. I paid for the title deeds and title plan but it doesn’t contain the information re the gardens.

The mistake I assume was from a solicitor on either side who hasn’t drawn the boundary line correctly on the title plan and it therefore just surrounds the house itself, missing the gardens.

Where would I obtain previous deeds? I obviously only have my parents copy which are no help.

You're looking primarily for the red line around the property which denotes boundary

I paid for the title deeds and title plan but it doesn’t contain the information re the gardens

This doesn’t really make sense op. The boundary is on the document. As a pp said it’s the red line. That’s what shows on the land registry. And it’s what your parents would have agreed to at the time.

The only other option is the solicitor was at fault and never showed them the deeds and agreed with the ha it was correct. Which would be highly unusual, conveyancing is a very standard practice and solicitors are very adept at covering their own arses. The client is shown and has to agree for the simple reason that there is no come back on the solicitor after wards.

The over whelming odds are your parents were provided the deeds to agree and it would be exactly what you’re seeing now.

The conveyancing solicitor has already explained that the deeds don’t include the gardens and how to rectify, unless you think they are erroneous?

What doesn't make sense here is how the gardens were detached from the main house in ownership terms? Normally the deeds are transferred lock stock and barrel t the new owner. Was it the first time the house had been sold, ie the housing association had it built. Whatever it is massive negligence on the part of the conveyancer.

I think you need expert advice on this. I seem to recall there are ways to correct mistakes such as this, if it is a mistake which there is no reason to believe otherwise.

In essence the house is pretty unsalable like this, bar maybe at auction for a bst,e reduced price.