Greenbelt Land for sale where several plots within the property have been sold as freehold

[Bekksy]

Hi

I am hoping for a little advice please.

There is a piece of land that is up for auction. The land, in the greenbelt, has a weird situation where it was previously subdivided and about 1/3 of the plots were sold off as freehold plots. So essentially I would assume that those freeholders still own their land. However the owner of the overall title went bankrupt and now the entire lot is up for sale.

Can anyone explain the rights of those freeholders. There is no access to individual plots. There is no road or utilities on the land. Basically I want to know if a developer could potentially try and develop on the land or do these freeholder owned plots make this impossible.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

What do the title deeds and the Land Registry have to say? Whose is the land?
Greenbelt is not sth you just go and build on + you can’t go and build on land you don’t own.

This sounds like a fairly well known scam where people bought small plots of land which was a 'dead cert' to get planning permission and now find themselves with bits of fields which are unlikely ever to be developed and the original landowner is long gone with their money.

Thanks Catmummyof2. That is what we thought.
My understanding is that this splitting of the land happened many years ago. But I am not sure as the previous owner of our house (the land is behind us) has very sketchy info.

So do you think that any developers would even want it? It has been given a guide price that we can afford (+ a little bit) for land but if a developer bids on it I think we'll lose it. I do not think they would get planning permission as its greenbelt and not adjacent to other housing estate/developments but you never really know. Another speculative planning permission down the road was rejected because it is also greenbelt and there were a lot of objections. This lot is on the same open land as that but about 500 metres across. I would also pay to have a wildlife survey done to stop development as it is full of animal life including deer and badgers and so many butterflies.

I am totally devastated. I discovered it was on auction last night and the auction is this week so I am in a state! And imagining a housing development 5 metres outside my back door

You don’t just go and build on the greenbelt. That’s the whole point of greenbelts. So v unlikely that it would happen.

I wouldn't rely on previous rejection of PP due to GB. My gorgeous village is being desecrated with houses that the locals can't afford which are empty most of the year.

Jojo

Here are the comments regarding Title from theLand registry. To me it appears that the green land is excluded and it is not being sold and there are other titles associated with it. There is another lot behind this one and it is also randomly green in the same way.

Crockof, that is my concern. Our council has been very free and easy with greenbelt land and are planning an entire 'Garden Village' on greenbelt to meet government housing demands. But I am hoping that the combo of greenbelt, the other planning permission being declined and the 'ownership ' issues around the bits of land will be our saving grace.

Hence coming to Mumsnet, aka the fount of all knowledge, for advice.

Yes it looks like it has been land banked. All of these green plots will have different owners. Potentially you could buy it and then offer to buy back each small plot but it would cost you a fortune in legal fees. But it makes the auction lot pretty worthless so if you would like to secure the plot to prevent building but nothing else then it might be worth a bid. Definitely consult a conveyancer for a review of the legal pack before you bid!

Just looking at this from a common sense point of view - I am not a land expert, but... I would have thought the land as it stands is just about unsellable. It is totally impractical to fence off the bits that would not be yours.The only way you could have free access to all of it would be to buy those little plots off the original owners - if you can find them.
This was a major scam 20 or 30 years ago, so it is probably not the first time that the resale of one of these pieces of land has come up. You would need to find out what has happened in those cases, and possibly a solicitor could help.
If I had been tricked into buying a small plot by scammers years ago, I would be hanging onto it now. The government says they are going to ease planning laws, so the possibility of previously virgin land being built on unfortunately may become a reality.

But if op buys all the non green bits and refuses to sell that would prevent development, which I think is her plan rather than owning more land. It all depends on if someone has already bought up these pieces of land, or knows that they were bought with the promise of future housing. If people bought the land on a punt to make money they won't stop a development

The key to building on land (at the moment) whether green belt or not, depends upon whether it’s included in The Local Plan, or not. The Govt has housing quotas because we have a lot of people who need housing. It has to go somewhere! Therefore local authorities were required to draw up local plans which stated where it was to go. If your LA has designated land for an eco village, that might well be the housing requirement for your locality.

The plots you are talking about are pretty worthless. I guess you could turn one into an allotment but it appears you have no right of way to access it or any services.

Personally on this basis, I wouldn’t spend £ on it but I would read the Local Plan before making any decisions. Also I might remember that your fellow citizens have to live somewhere and developments are required to have social housing too. Everyone has children who want homes, don’t they?

@Bekksy we are near neighbours. This plot is very close to me.

By selling off the green plots they have made it unusable for anyone who might want to do anything like build one house there.

The local council are under pressure to build but mostly seem to be interested in achieving this by allowing nice large character houses to be demolished and replaced by bland flats for which there is limited demand. But they tick the box of increasing the number of dwellings.

We have a green belt development proposed behind us. It’s been going on for years and even ended the time before last in the High Court.

Personally if I could afford it, and it was behind my garden, I’d buy it. I can’t see any developer going after this. Multiple owners is a nightmare so the price might be very low. Do not start the bidding.

Hi
This land is completely excluded from the local plan. It was not even included in the initial investigation carried out around the local plan. There were a number of sports grounds, which border this and the adjacent plots, included in the initial local plan investigation but this was not. Are you saying that if it is not in the local plan developers would not get permission? That does make me feel better.

I have complete access to this land but I do not want to build on it. I want to keep in safe from developers. I do recognise that houses are needed but not to the detriment of either wildlife or the local community. I also think we may be in for a deluge of brownfield sites available in the near future for house building as companies sell offices and downsize due to people working from home... yes that is pure speculation/wishful thinking on my part .

Eurochick... lol. Awesome. And I thought I had cleverly removed any reference to where it is.. but if you know the area then you would recognise it, I suppose. If you have ever been on this land you would know that it is like a Dr Suess cartoon terrain.. it is even difficult to walk on and would need to be flattened/graded which would harm the eco-system. My grand plan would be to plant wildflowers and put up some beehives and a some more trees.
You can understand my concern, and horror, when I discovered that the auction sign on that well known old pub site turned out to have nothing to do with the land behind that hoardings but rather the land behind my house . Also can you imagine more traffic on this road?
They do seem keener on turning larger houses into flats and the prospective application for the mansion was declined.

I didn't sleep last night.

it may be excluded from your councils current local plan, but these plans last around 20 years so things will be different by the time the next one is due. having said that, the governments announced its going to relax the planning rules and try and build its way out of the current mess. hmm we will see. but, it does mean that the developers may rub their hands with glee and these local plans end up being thrown out of the window. i'm worried as i rent a field for horse grazing that the local big developers have a purchase option on. it was put forward for inclusion in the new local plan a few years ago but ultimately not included (thankfully for me) i thought i was "safe" for 20 years but now i'm not so sure.

there's nothing like owning your land to have full control over it. it may be possible to gain possession of those funny little sold plots by adverse possession over a period of time but you'd have to take legal advice on that. i bet those owners don't come and check, they probably wrote it off as a bad job years ago. you could charge them something to access their plot of land though!

Thank you everyone for your feedback. I will try and see a lawyer tomorrow and get some advice and take it from there.

I hope you can secure the land if that's what you decide you want @Bekksy. It would be lovely if it could be kept wild. I've never been over there - I tend to walk/run over the other side of the road.

(You didn't leave any identifying details and I have been careful not to mention any. I recognised it immediately as we are looking for land to buy in the area and this popped up in my searches and I though "wtf" as it is completely unusable with those sold plots out of it.)

Local Planning is at the whim of the government and always has been. If the local council has met the targets for development then they may not need it in the future either. Who has a crystal ball though?

Flats are bought by younger people and the older people who downsize. Planners have to do a lot of work to establish what’s required but developers obviously want max bang for their buck. However I think tighter control on social housing and greater use of brownfield sites are also in the mix, as is change of use from retail.

The government do want to stop hold ups by local councils who won’t agree to anything and the latest legislation is aimed at circumventing this. I don’t think any site can be fully protected against development when it abuts existing development. I would certainly consult a property lawyer for advice.

@bigbradford

The key to building on land (at the moment) whether green belt or not, depends upon whether it’s included in The Local Plan, or not. The Govt has housing quotas because we have a lot of people who need housing. It has to go somewhere! Therefore local authorities were required to draw up local plans which stated where it was to go. If your LA has designated land for an eco village, that might well be the housing requirement for your locality.

The plots you are talking about are pretty worthless. I guess you could turn one into an allotment but it appears you have no right of way to access it or any services.

Personally on this basis, I wouldn’t spend £ on it but I would read the Local Plan before making any decisions. Also I might remember that your fellow citizens have to live somewhere and developments are required to have social housing too. Everyone has children who want homes, don’t they?

Unfortunately it has been made clear by some local authorities that the objective behind some huge developments is to enlarge certain formerly, rural, county populations by attracting people in from outside.

Which is not what they were saying ten years ago. Back then we were told these were houses to meet local demand.

Warlingham?

Thanks Eurochick, hopefully people realise the land is useless for developers and nobody bids

Alexalee.... Warlingham? Where's that?

My guess is the green plots belong to people/companies connected to the current vendor (certainly not 1 per unconnected undevidual) and the plot as a whole will be bought at a artificially lowered price by the same people/company in a different guise as a whole, meaning devepment will now be more straightforward.
Disclaimer : I do work in an industry where auction ringing is prevelant and it sound like the kind of thing that happens in the Archers.
I hope this all pans out in your favour OP.