Buying vacant land

[cwhaley]

Bit of a long one….


There is a patch of land next-door-but-one to me which is unoccupied and I would like to buy the land. I live in a semi and this land is sited between the house we are joined to and a detached house, so we don’t border it. The detached house I mention is going through probate after a death in 2020. I always (erroneously) assumed the land was part of that house, as the last owner of that house used to park his cars on the land (and had done for a long time). I have since found out from his son that the land actually once belonged to another detached house next door. That house was originally occupied by the builder who built our homes (in the 1940s) and the land was much larger then, being used as storage for materials. He built a house on the land (the now vacant property) leaving the remaining little patch of land which exists today. The house was then sold on but the land was not sold with it and remains in their possession. I do not know where the family now live.


Who is best to contact to query a potential sale? I’m only interested in buying the land to build a garage to store a car (it’s not big enough for a house).

 

[cdbe]

Personally I would just "claim" it, like the most recent occupant appears to have done. Good timing by the sounds of it. Start by putting a small fence and lockable gate round it and work up to a garage.

 

[Notch7]

Bit of a long one….


There is a patch of land next-door-but-one to me which is unoccupied and I would like to buy the land. I live in a semi and this land is sited between the house we are joined to and a detached house, so we don’t border it. The detached house I mention is going through probate after a death in 2020. I always (erroneously) assumed the land was part of that house, as the last owner of that house used to park his cars on the land (and had done for a long time). I have since found out from his son that the land actually once belonged to another detached house next door. That house was originally occupied by the builder who built our homes (in the 1940s) and the land was much larger then, being used as storage for materials. He built a house on the land (the now vacant property) leaving the remaining little patch of land which exists today. The house was then sold on but the land was not sold with it and remains in their possession. I do not know where the family now live.


Who is best to contact to query a potential sale? I’m only interested in buying the land to build a garage to store a car (it’s not big enough for a house).

I would claim it now before the estate agents include in their sale.
fence it off so it looks like part of your property

the risk is whether the relatives of the person that died kick up a fuss -doesnt sound like it if the son says it belongs to another house




the chances of find out who it belongs to is remote IMO

 

[lostinthelight]

First check its not registered to anyone.
Do a search on land registry site,go to map Search and enter postcode, then change map view to birds eye, then hover over the land.
If you see that details are held you can register and pay ,last time I did it, £3 for the map and £3 for reg details

 

[Stivino]

You'll soon find out who owns it if you fence it off.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

The Land Registry is your first port of call, to be sure of who actually owns - it costs around £3 last time I looked. You just zoom in on a map, to point to the bit of land, then request details of the owner of the land and pay.

It used to be that if you made exclusive of it for around 10(?) years, without the owner realising - you could then claim the land. I did that 20 years ago, to extend my own back garden, by fencing it off and building on it unnoticed by the owner for those years. At the end of which, I made a formal application to claim it. The rules have changed though since then.

 

[cwhaley]

I did think about starting to ‘take it over’. Initially, I just wanted to tidy it because it’s so overgrown with weeds and a rotten garage it looks a blight on the street. Then I did think about parking my car on there but chickened out when I saw the son of number 50 cleaning some of the weeds. He was very upfront about it not being part of the estate and a small picket fence does in fact form a physical ‘boundary’ marker between number 50 and this land. He is getting back to me with the contact details when (probably more if) he can find them. At present, all I can do is wait – hence me wanting to try my own route.


Thanks for the land registry suggestion. I did use this first but couldn’t find any reference to land at this point in the street (there are others, much further down). I then checked out the land registry map tool to bring my street up. According to that, the land sits on number 50’s patch but there is a dotted line along the boundary with the public highway (an unclassified road) which very closely matches the width of the land I’m interested in. The same dotted lines are used on ever other property, so I think it’s denoting the land as a separate entity but I’m not sure!


Thank you, by the way for all the replies. Much appreciated.