Buying/Borrowing/Leasing overgrown land

Joined
27 Mar 2011
Messages
180
Reaction score
5
Location
Tyne and Wear
Country
United Kingdom
Hi folks,

Has anyone any experience of buying/borrowing/leasing land from Housing Associations, in particular Home Housing/Home Group?

We own our house and freehold in a street owned by Home Housing. Most of the other houses in the street are rented.The back and side of our house overlooks a field, which is owned by the Housing Association itself as opposed to the council. In recent years, large parts of the field have been allowed to become overgrown with weeds and are starting to attract small scale fly tipping (tyres, carpets, kids scooters, general rubbish etc).

I'm unable get a sensible answer from the local housing officer regading maintenance. He seems unconcerned about the rubbish or the weeds, and when a fridge/carpet/sofa was dumped, actually grumbled that it would cost them money to get the council to move it.

I would like to propose to move my fence back by 2-3 metres to swallow up some of the worst of this area, and increase my garden space. This isn't about money or development, and I have no desire to try and build things on it. I'm aware adverse possession laws changed some time ago, and that moving the fence on the quiet wouldn't be of financial benefit anyway. I would be prepared to move my fence back to where it was in the future if asked to.

This is purely because I feel my family could benefit from the increased garden space and it would save the Housing Association some of the work of maintaining this area. It would also mean I wouldn't have to look out of my landing window every day and wince at the state of it.

I've asked previously about buying some of the land and was told that they didn't want to sell it because he may be built on in the future. It's possible this isn't accurate as I made the enquiry via the housing officer.

Today I've spoken to the Legal department, who put me onto the Asset Management department, of which one person is on holiday (I have sent an email) and the other is diverting to answerphone.

Before they get back to me, I'd like some tips/advice if possible. Have any of you good people any experience of Housing Associations/councils and this sort of land? What I could use to my advantage when speaking to them? In an ideal world I'd love to buy some of the land and use it as garden, but I'd be almost equally happy with borrowing or leasing the land. Is there any way I could use the current state of the land to my advantage? If they don't want to play ball, where do I stand legally if I just put up a fence and tend to the land anyway? I'm fully aware I wouldn't have any claim to the land, but could they force me to stop using it if they weren't maintaining it themselves?

Sorry for the long winded message, I'm hopeless at keeping things brief lol.





:)
 
Sponsored Links
Could environmental health help with forcing them to clear it? Rats etc are attracted by rubbish.

Perhaps if the area becomes a pain for them they may be more inclined to sell it, on the other hand they may decided to never sell it to you in spite.
 
Could environmental health help with forcing them to clear it? Rats etc are attracted by rubbish.

Perhaps if the area becomes a pain for them they may be more inclined to sell it, on the other hand they may decided to never sell it to you in spite.

There's not massive amounts of rubbish to be honest, just annoying amounts of the usual lazy arse stuff like cans and crisp bags getting chucked into all the weedy undergrowth. That and the larger stuff being deliberately brought onto the field.
 
I feel sorry for you being put in this position.
I think you're more likely to have success if you can get together with other like-minded neighbours (if there are any!) and then apply pressure to encourage the housing association to allow you to use the site for allotments or a community garden or similar. It's all about shaming the Association into taking action. Getting pictures and an article in your local paper and getting local councillors involved would also help.
It will be an uphill struggle but don't be afraid to go way over the heads of the local Housing Association officials who most likely won't have executive powers to change anything without referring the matter up to higher management levels. As for buying a small piece for yourself, I think that's very unlikely indeed.
Good luck, you'll need it!
 
Sponsored Links
I've had a reply from the Housing Association far quicker than I imagined I would, and it's relatively good news.

They are prepared to sell or rent me some of the land. The only slight problem (not sure if that's the correct word) is that there's a moratorium in place that will not allow them to sell or rent the land for less than a certain minimum amount, and it's quite high. However the fact that it's not an outright 'no', is great news and gives me something to work with. I might just have to look into borrowing some money and buying more than I'd initially wanted to.

It goes to show that you shouldn't accept what you're told by the first person you speak to. Twice I was told by our Housing Officer that we couldn't buy the house in the first place, I only discovered we could by stumbling around their website looking for something else. I was also told twice by Housing Officers that we couldn't buy any of the field.
 
Given that your in the middle of a HA housing area, where you will get the types of tenant that like to dump their sofas out back and worse etc, do you really want to buy the house?
 
We bought the house years ago. It's the extra garden space we'd like to buy.

The house is only 24 years old and was half the price of comparable new builds. They've demolished most of the local council houses and are rebuilding all around us, the street itself is very sought after with very few scruffs, there's just a small minority of people in the remaining council houses out the back who seem to be using the field to dump on.
 

DIYnot Local

Staff member

If you need to find a tradesperson to get your job done, please try our local search below, or if you are doing it yourself you can find suppliers local to you.

Select the supplier or trade you require, enter your location to begin your search.


Are you a trade or supplier? You can create your listing free at DIYnot Local

 
Back
Top