Neighbours Land

[sah89]

Hi, I am planning on building an extension off the back of my property. Ideally I would be able to build straight off the joint wall with my neighbour. This would mean that my extension would encroach about a yard onto my neighbours land. I have spoken to my neighbour and they are happy for me to do this. Is a verbal agreement enough or would I need to go to see a solicitor in order for the land to become mine? Also would there be any issues in getting planning if I build on the land belonging to my neighbour.

Thanks in advance

 

[^woody^]

As a general rule, anything to do with land should be formalised and properly recorded

 

[xdave]

It's not a general rule - it is an absolute requirement - to get it legally recorded. Your current neighbour may be happy for for you to build on their land but neither of you will be able to sell your houses to a mortgaged buyer because every solicitor will quite rightly warn against it. Most cash buyers would also walk away.

The only satisfactory resolution which will not come back to haunt both of you will be for you to formally transfer the land into your ownership. You will need to pay the fees to the land registry but you should be able to complete the forms yourselves without needing to employ a solicitor. You should probably offer to reinstate your neighbour in some way, either financially or by offering to carry out works of an equivalent value for them at the same time as your build (maybe a new garden wall, new gutters while you have scaffolding up, etc). One exception to that is to not grant any form of ROW to them over your land in exchange as that will reduce the value of your property by more than the increase the extension will ive you.

 

[mattylad]

Your neighbor is going to allow you to take upt a yard of their property for nothing?

Your having a larf!

Why not build on your own land with your own wall, then you will not encroach on your neighbours property.

Do what you plan and eventually someone will regret it, then neighbor wars break out.

 

[Nige F]

I once sold a metre wide strip @ the bottom of my garden - got £1k for it - then allowed the neighbour to put up scaffold on remaining part of the garden for the duration - solicitors/land registry involved , he paid for that . I later sold up , no problems and everyone was