Unregistered land between houses

[Hummingbird33]

I'm in the process of buying a semi-detached house. There's parking to the rear, accessed via a shared driveway in the gap between the house and the neighbouring house, which is wide enough for one car to pass. This is the only access to the garage and rear garden gate.

Searches have revealed that half of the strip between the houses is owned by next door (the half next to their house) and the other half (directly next to the one I'm buying) is unregistered land. There is no record of any rights of way over it, and the owner hasn't been identified.

The solicitor has sent queries to the seller, but I'm quite worried that this is going to be a big issue. Has anyone had experience with anything like this? Thanks.

How old is the house?

Not totally sure, about 1960s/70s

Does the property you're looking at have any right of way over that strip in the deeds?

Apparently not. They're going to have a look at the title for next door though to see if anything is written there.

Anyone?

My DS2 was buying a house that sounds similar. Semi detached. He bought the right hand cottage as you look at it. Drive to the right of the cottage has right of way to a detached house to the back right of it.
The left hand cottage owned by A has a drive to the left of it. This has a right of way to two garages at the back of DS house ] and DS2 owns the third garage of the row of three ]and nearest to his house. Turned out DS2 would own all the land plus a separate garden at the back. The others have right of way. So DS2 went through with the sale.
If A sells we will try to buy the cottage. A and his brotherB owned both cottages but B sold his. Luckily A is lovely and there have been no problems. The detached house to the left has just been sold. We would try and buy the semi as it could be difficult in the future.

I would make sure the solicitor is thorough and that you understand everything clearly. A difficult neighbour could create problems personally I wouldn’t want the potential hassle but DS2 decided to go ahead. Good luck.

Yes that's what worries me, if there's a difficult neighbour! If they don't establish ownership and rights of way properly I think I'd rather pull out, which would be a shame as the house itself is great. The solicitor said something about a potential indemnity policy in case of someone coming and asserting rights over it in future but I wouldn't be happy with that.

Thanks!

Update... the solicitor said that it looks like there was an error on the land registry at some point many years ago, but apparently there is no transfer in the title deeds and nothing historical has been obtained from the Land Registry.

However they looked at the title for the house next door sharing the driveway / access and it's as would be expected, giving them access over the unregistered bit and stating that the property next door (the one I'm buying) has rights of access over it and no before to be parked there. This is what we expected to see, reciprocal rights for the one we're buying.

Has anyone ever had something like this and accepted indemnities and statements (from the seller to claim they've been using it as their own) to get moving? The chances are that nobody else will try to claim it or even know about the issue. I'm worried that this will devalue the property though and make it very difficult to sell on in future. We're not planning to sell up in the foreseeable future but you never know what will happen in life!

If the seller tries to get it registered it is likely to slow things down a lot as it will be reliant on the land registry accepting and processing it.

Thanks

I'd be a bit careful.

Slightly different but the end house on our terrace doesn't have a right of way over the same type of land that they need to access for a garage which is included in the title of the house itself. They actually own the strip of land under a separate title. The right of way for certain of the houses (not his) is included in my title deeds but no one else's. They have no right of way under the title deeds. If they didn't own the land (and the previous owner wasn't aware they did) they would have no legal right of way to their garage.

The right of way is on my deeds but I am not the immediate neighbour. When you say that "property next door" has rights - does it say adjacent/adjoining/etc? It could be argued that the Right of Way is for the adjoining semi and not for you

Maybe your solicitor should also look at the attached to you semi's title? It could be on there. My neighbours are only aware since I mentioned it (and the ROW has been rescinded in one case for other reasons)

Pull out. Not worth the hassle

Diagramme???

@AmJustDone It's unregistered so it won't be on the other house's title.

The neighbour's title refers to rights of way for "the property to the West". Part of my property would be adjoining their land to the West and the rest would be the unregistered bit.

I shall attempt a diagram!

If you ever plan to move from the house then I would give this one a miss. It will definitely cause you issues when selling.

@Sprig1 yes that's what I'm worried about. I suppose we could claim the land if we're there a long time but you never know.

I'm worried that we could lose our buyer if we pull out now, also want to move before our mortgage offer runs out (December) so we don't end up with a higher interest rate!

Excuse the basic drawing skills! This is not particularly accurate or to scale but gives you an idea!

A = the one I'm buying, B = neighbour. P and G are parking spaces and garages. The yellow area is unregistered. Right hand half of the shared bit belongs to B.

My right of way does not refer to a title just "Land to the North and rear of "10 Acacia Avenue""

@AmJustDone The house that shares the driveway has a shaded area roughly the shape of the unregistered bit marked as a right of way.

The attached houses either side have nothing to do with it, they've got totally separate driveways.

It's just really odd! I'm surprised our seller didn't notice it when purchasing the property, maybe they had a bad solicitor.

Argh this is still dragging on. Any further advice or experiences welcome!

The latest is that no insurer will provide an adverse possession indemnity policy for the unregistered land because it's a shared access way and it's not fenced in (which it obviously can't be!).

Seller wants us to go ahead on the basis of providing a statement that they have used the land for over 12 years etc. with no indemnity policies at all. Then we can apply ourselves for adverse possession after completion.

Our mortgage lender might not approve it anyway, but if they do the risk will be on us because we have about 35% deposit (so even if they think it's worth less due to this they might still go ahead with the mortgage offer because their money is covered).

I've got a bad feeling about it but DP seems to think it's OK. If interest rates were not on the rise we'd have pulled out by now, but it feels like we might get stuck where we are for years if we don't go ahead now. 😭

I’d pull out. No indemnity availability is not a great sign and I’m not particularly risk adverse. It has the potential to become an unwanted boundary dispute or It could end up being a random strip at some point as the red line on title plans are only valid +/- 0.5m either way. If I understand your diagram correctly correctly you have the potential for boundary dispute in the future as you don’t have a completely defined boundary on one side of the property you intend to buy. There is also a massive backlog at the land registry so you can’t be certain an application is not in process.

on another note, I once had to create such a strip in order to sell a house I’d renovated for resale because the owner of the property next door was objectively unreasonable and having created both an unreasonable and disclosable boundary dispute (which ran to a £10k legal bill) then refused to try and settle it including a cash offer. The land was registered tho.

@Netaporter Thanks. I thought the unavailability of an indemnity policy was a bad sign too.

The chances are that nobody would dispute the adverse possession claim / have a stronger claim than us, but if next door did decide to for some reason then I think we could end up racking up a legal bill at our own expense with no indemnity in place.

The boundary line currently does not include the yellow bit on my diagram, so it goes around the house and the garage and parking space.

Rights of way over the neighbour's half of the shared accessway are also not in the title, but our solicitor thinks that should be easily rectified due to appearing in the neighbouring title. No indemnity in respect of that either as they can't find an insurer who would cover it if we attempt to register the rights at the land registry.

I’m a bit of a gambler. I’d buy the house and register the land.

a neighbour of ours did similar recently. We all got a letter from the land registry saying x has applied to register a bit of land next to his house, does anyone object. Nobody did and now the land is his. Guess you’re relying on the neighbour not objecting but it seems unlikely.

I’d be reassured by the rights of way being on the other deeds and therefore rectifable. Your neighbour trying to claim the land is unlikely as there would be no benefit. He still couldn’t park or build on it due to the rights of way.

Whenever I've bought a house - and I've bought a few - one of my rulesis no shared access. A friend got into a huge legal fight when really unpleasant people moved in next door and made her life impossible over shared access. This sounds complicated on a whole other level.
I would pull out.

@QuebecBagnet Yes, the only possible objection is the neighbour, on the basis of them also having used the land for access. But I can't see how their claim would be stronger than ours. Their title plan encompasses their half as expected and they have right of way over the unregistered bit.

@Joshanddonna Yes that is a good point. We plan to convert the front garden to a driveway too, but we'd still want access to the back. I'm not overly keen on shared access but this house is in a good area, in budget and there's not a lot on the market at the moment, which is why we overlooked that there's shared access.