Buying garden land from a ground management company

[Twinning1985]

Any thoughts very welcome! We have a small parcel of land next to our house (basically just cordoned off grass with a cherry tree that constantly whacks against our house in the wind) which says its owned by the flats next door. No on ever uses it - there's just a bloke who comes and mows the lawn on occasion, and I wondered if we could purchase it for parking as we have limited space in our garage. Would probably be cheaper than moving house too.

I've called the company, and they've given me an email address for someone - who I have emailed and enquired about purchasing the land. But that's been over a week now.

I'll probably try and get her on the phone next week, but do you think it's something that is possible? Or is there anyone else I can try who might be able to help me?

I realise there might be planning permission involved, but probably not worth investigating this until they've said they'd be willing to sell it to us?

TIA

Personally I think that’s a win win for you and the management company who will no longer have to maintain that piece of land (and probably still charge the leaseholders the same amount). Bear that in mind when negotiating the price as they will probably try and charge a lot for it even though it’s in their favour that you take it.

I wonder if you could get a valuation on it somehow before discussing prices?

I saw an article online about the average cost to buy ‘garden land’ so will use that as an estimate!

We brought a strip of land from a developer with our previous property’. We checked who owned it on the land registry website (small fee payable for title document). Then wrote to them and offered to purchase. We ended up paying £5k for it but it made the garden much bigger. We also had to pay their solicitors fees (and ours). There was a covenant that we couldn’t build on it as well.