Land ownership issues.

[Fartymcnarty]

Not sure is this is the correct section but it’s a bit of an odd query i suppose. Long story short I have an issue with a piece of land behind my property. There is a large growth of Japanese knotweed which is effecting my ability to remortgage my house. This piece of land is a river bank, I am desperately trying to find out who owns it so I can have them deal with this. I have applied to the land registry and the piece of land was owned by a company in 1989, which has long since dissolved. Does anyone know what would happen to the land in the case? It’s a very small but long piece of land. Any help would be appreciated!

If the owner no longer exists then the land can be claimed by the crown, although they don’t have to.

Your best bet is to write to the representative of the crown (different for different areas) asking whether they own the land, and go from there.

If you can trace the former owners of the company you can also them to “restore” the company for long enough to deal with this.

This article might help, it’s about buying land with no clear owner but at least gives you some of the terminology you might see: www.buckles-law.co.uk/blog/buying-bona-vacantia-land-from-a-dissolved-company/

OP, just to check, how recent is the information from the Land Registry? If it's not up to date, it would be worth ordering a new set of official copies just to check that it's still in the ownership of the dissolved company.

Well I assume it’s up to date, I paid £80 to the land registry for the records last week. I have emailed them back just to ask.

Thanks for the advice Grooticle, I will have a look at this and hopefully get some answers.

Have you heard of adverse possession?
"after 10 years’ adverse possession, the squatter will be entitled to apply to be registered as proprietor in place of the registered proprietor of the land"

Get proper legal advice, of course.

OP, how did you pay £80? The fee should be much, much less than that. Sorry, probably an unhelpful comment.

No I understand you asking, It was something to do with it being a river bank so it wasn’t an immediate report. It took a few days so the fee was higher. I know it’s usually about £9 I think.

@senua - OP is incredibly unlikely to be anywhere along the line to an adverse possession claim unless s/he has already done something to "possess" the land in question (ie fence it off or similar). Given that there's Japanese Knotweed potentially on it, hopefully not.

No I have no interest in the land, it is literally just a river bank with some trees, plants and wildlife. And a massive growth of knotweed

it is literally just a river bank with some trees, plants and wildlife.
Just!?That's one of my dreams: to own a stretch of riverbank. But without flood risk and deffo without JK. Or Himalaya Balsam.

I’ll put your name on the deeds!!!

Please do! after you have got rid of the JK

Just thinking - Rivers (and river banks) are often owned by the canal and rivers trust, they may be able to tell you if they consider they own it: canalrivertrust.org.uk/news-and-views/features/our-rivers-navigable-rivers-in-england-and-wales

Thanks I will look into that!!!

Have you reported to your local council? I'm sure round here environmental dept have to deal with knotweed regardless of who owns the land.