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.

Could you knock and talk to the neighbour and gauge how sensible they are.

@QuebecBagnet Yes, it's not too far away. Might be worth a go! I'm not sure whether they own or rent though.

Seller says he hasn't had any issues in 20 odd years and thought he owned the land (but then, he wants to sell so he would say that).

I wonder if we should ask for a price reduction due to the additional risk / part of the land not being owned as expected.

Have you exhausted all insurers or just the ones on your solicitors preferred supplier list?

Very different situation, but we were told by solicitors that any indemnity policy for a strip of unregistered land on the edge of our prospective purchase would be invalid as soon as we contacted land registry to get it registered. I called Aviva and somehow got through to an actual underwriter and got a policy that covered us all through the registration process (and it wasn't any more expensive than the standard policy offered through the solicitor). Solicitor was very surprised and said he'd never come across a policy covering registration before, but the underwriter told me that anything in property can be insured, if you speak to the right person....

So it might be worth a morning on the phones?

I wonder if we should ask for a price reduction due to the additional risk / part of the land not being owned as expected.

Absolutely - if you can't get an indemnity policy (which the seller usually offers to pay for) then of course the seller should reduce the price, as you are effectively 'self-insuring' against anything going wrong. The seller has a 'defective title' (think that's the proper term!) so the value is correspondingly reduced.

Good diagramme, thank you.

I don't suppose there's any way of buying that strip of land is there? Who did house B buy it from?

This wouldn’t worry me, the neighbour’s title gives you ROW / access, and they can’t just remove that. Plus the indemnity policy. Plus you would have a strong case for adverse possession (you claim the land) after 10 years use. And may anyway be able to get the title deed corrected.

I bought a house with a similar problem, however in ours, due to the title deeds having been converted from paper to digital our drive had two odd triangles of ground apparently owned by next door. They would have no reason to have owned random bits of the driveway so it's a mystery how they screwed it up so badly. We did manage to get indemnity as it is gated and we got an affidavit that stated the previous owners had had sole access for the 7 years before.

I really do need to get it sorted. Might ring the indemnity insurer today actually

@Tollystar That is interesting, thanks. The seller's solicitor said they've tried 3 insurers and none will cover it, but I guess they could try harder or we could try ourselves.

We might ask for a price reduction and be prepared to walk away if the seller says no. Not sure how much is reasonable though!

@MrsOwainGlyndŵr Glad you like the diagram 😁

The strip of land is unregistered. It is assumed that our seller owns it and he believes he does.

Can the seller apply for adverse possession? When that's sorted you'll exchange. You can expedite the application.

I would regretfully back out unless I could buy the unregistered land and secure access.

@SuperCamp They're saying they can't provide an indemnity policy now, so the risk is higher.

The land registry won't rectify it because the mistake was made by a solicitor on first registration, not them. We can apply for adverse possession with a statement from the seller.

@Triotriotrio That's odd! It makes you wonder how these things happen... even if using an incompetent conveyancer I'd like to think I'd spot something like this myself prior to purchase!

@billygoatsgruff1 That would be ideal but they won't do it because it will take ages and they don't want the delay (65 days notification period + likely delays at land registry even if expedited). Also our buyer would probably get fed up waiting.

A number of years ago now, i put in an offer on a main door flat. It was a standard old victorian 4 in a block type flat. The garden out the back according to the deeds was a mix of shared and owned but the owned bits didnt correspond with outside the back door, it was random placement. In reality, at some point over the years, the 4 owners had got together and split the land into 4 seperate gardens outside each back door. The gardens were established with fences/hedges/bushes etc. It looked totally as if your garden was yours. We didnt go ahead because if a nightmare neighbour moved in, we technically had no rights to our private garden and they may choose to spend all their time in my section. There was a few other issues with shared sections which had become unofficially private which didn't sit comfortably with me. The flat sold vert quickly though so i often wondered whether some people just dont worry about these things

If it’s an otherwise great house, I would probably go ahead and immediately register the land. You have rights over the equivalent strip so that’s worth something. I might ask for a few grand off to cover the hassle of registering and potential downsides.

I’d want to meet the neighbour to see if I thought they would be an arsehole (I’d do that anyway) but I absolutely would NOT mention the land to him, in case he puts in a speedy registration.

We’ve also just bought a house with a defective title - our sellers made a statutory declaration about what they thought the title was and alongside with indemnities we’ve been able to exchange whilst the Land Registry sorts out the actual title. Is that an option? However in our case it was a document mix up, not a case of adding different plots of land

We will have to apply for adverse possession using a statutory declaration from the seller after exchange. The land was incorrectly registered by a conveyancer on first registration so the land registry won't rectify it as not their error.

Definitely won't mention it to the neighbours! We'd move in and treat it as ours from the off. It is definitely a good idea to meet them though.

I'm wondering whether the neighbour might co-operate to help get this sorted OP? It's in their interest too to make sure they know who owns the other half of the shared driveway, how costs of maintaining it will be split, and for their right of way over the drive to be register on the title to the house you're buying.

It's also in your interest to know if the neighbours will cooperate or be difficult if you or your sellers need to make an application to get this sorted.

Hummingbird, I have come across your post as I have found myself in a very similar situation. I’m intrigued to know what you decided to do?

@Grove2023 we got a statutory declaration from the seller stating that he owned that land, it was part of the plot etc. and decided to risk it. Haven't had any issues at all and we love the house.

We've bought that bit with the house, even if it's unregistered, so we're just carrying on and using it as normal. At one point we agreed with the neighbour the other side of the shared driveway to pay half each and resurface the shared bit as it was quite cracked, no issues. Definitely can't see any problem with the neighbours which is fortunate.

At some point we might get round to claiming adverse possession and registering the unregistered bit, but there's no rush. Probably would attempt it if we wanted to sell, but that's not on the horizon.

Good luck!

Thank you for responding, that’s really reassuring to hear and I’m glad that you love the house and it all went well.

After quite a bit of worry over what to do, I think we may be making the same decision as yourself in the interest of not losing the only place that we have liked after over a year of searching. Hopefully it’ll be worth the risk!

I own a piece of land that I am now selling to a developer. There is a small piece of land (in purple) that has a right of way in favour of a man who is now dead. On my deeds it states that the right of way carrys on. He used to own the field at the back. I believe the Welsh development own the field now. I have looked on land registery the field is unregistered. The land registry map shows in white the field and their access. The purple little bit is where they have a right of way over. Currently the purple bit forms part of the access however without the purple bit it is wide enough for access. The developer wants to square the plot off and incorporate the purple bit into the site. The solicitor for the buyer is saying we need to involve the third party ie Welsh development agency to get the right of way lifted. Thoughts please ?

Tried to put the map up but it didn’t work. Sorry. Might be hard to understand.