find a land owner?

[Nomada]

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions. I know of a field with a small stream running through it and the shell of an old abondoned house on it. I'd really like to find the land owner and approach them to see if they'd sell and ho much for, but the land registry website has nothing for me. I know the road but don't know the specific address so I looked it up on the aerial view map and found nothing. I think this means it's unregistered but i'm not sure. Any ideas where to go from here? I'm close to just going down there and knocking on doors!

[Green Aura]

That might be the quickest and simplest way!

Although if any locals get wind of it not being registered they might claim it for themselves. Have you made an official request from Land Registry and paid a fee (it's less than a fiver)? Because they should be able to tell you even if the information is not in the public area. And surely if they don't have that information it's unregistered - so then get a claim in quick.

[Nomada]

Oh my god! Really? How do i claim it, do you know how you do that? Register it yourself?

[Green Aura]

I think so. Our house in Manchester was land-locked - the neighbours on one side had bought a small strip of land from the other neighbour to make a drive so our corner plot had no direct access to the street. Our rather unscrupulous solicitor noticed this strip hadn't been registered and suggested that we did it so we wouldn't have to get a deed of easement to allow us access across their land.

Needless to say we didn't - we told the neighbour and they registered it. I don't know if they needed proof of ownership - but they had a bill of sale anyway.

Years later we got another strip of front garden from the neighbour (my mother by that time ) and we registered it as ours giving us a driveway of our own.

That was probably far too much info - I couldn't work out a simpler way of describing it. I don't know how it works if the land is totally unregistered though - surely Land Registry would be able to tell you?

[Nomada]

I think I'll go away and research that properly, thanks!

[happy place]

i have asked land regestry to find owner of a piece of land and got the details back for the nearest house who wern't the owners and i knew that cause i'd already knocked on thier door and that cost me about £40
ask my soliciter if he knew how to find owner gave him the details 2 hours later he called me with the owners details and said it would cost a FIVER and he forgot to send me the bill so didnt have to pay
so i would advise asking local soliciter cause they could help you regester it if required as well

[Thurston Garden]

Nomada did you ever find out who owned this land? If the Register can't help then one way I do this is by using the OS map section on Multimap.com. I try and locate all the nearby farms on the OS map and then get numbers for them from yell.com. I have never failed to find who owns a field this way. If the nearest farmer does not own it, he may be renting it or knows someone who knows. Deciding how much information you want to give away when you say you would like to buy it is the hard part!

It's unlikely it's unregistered. There are some parts that are not, but more often than not small pieces of land get forgotten about - historically when large estates were sold on, there was no map or plans registered - the factor would have a large bound register with field numbers and names as the only record. If the field is in use and not waist high in weeds and grass then someone must know.

My last option is usually to pin a notice on the gate asking for the field user to ring.

Good luck!

[bonniethomas06]

Hi there,

Not sure from your post whether you have done this or not, but it sounds as if you need to ask the Land Registry to do an 'Index Map Search'. This is a search which is based on a map - you highlight on an O.S Map the area you want to search, and they will send you the title number (from which you can get the regiatration document) if it is registered (this will have the owners address on it)

However, if the house is derelict, it could well be unregistered. It only became compulsory to register your land in 1991 in this country. But this only applies when you do something with the land, such as grant a mortgage over it, or sell it etc - these events 'trigger' registration.

Therefore, if the house has just stood there since before 1991, it sounds as if nothing has happened to it to 'trigger' its registration. This makes it much more difficult - you might try contacting the local authority or water board - someone must be responsible for paying the council tax on it or the last name on the water rates bill?

However, I am not clear as to what is referred to as 'claiming' - there is something called 'Adverse Posession' in the UK - where you can claim title to the land if you can prove that you have lived there for twelve consecutive years and the owner consented or didn't know (or care!) despite a reasonable opportunity to find out.

But you can't just 'claim' it if it doesn't belong to anyone - presumably this would be because the owner has died and there were no heirs to it. In this case the land reverts to the crown, so is owned by the treasurer, and usually sold pretty quick?

Good luck though, sounds like a great opportunity if you can grab it!

P.s sorry for the land law based rant!

[Green Aura]

That was a great explanation Bonnie, and presumably explains why we only paid a £3+a few pence for a search where someone above paid a lot more - we emailed a marked map so they knew exactly where we meant.

So what do these people who sell leaflets revealing the secrets of unclaimed land put in them - are they just blank when you open them?

And, more specifically, why did our solicitor try to get us to register the land back in Manc as ours?

[Thurston Garden]

Ah, the differences in English and Scot's law! I did not know that titles in England did not need to be registered until so recently. Up here I think registration in the Sasine started in the early 1617. In Scotland you can claim a title if you have used a piece of land unchallenged for 12 years - it's called Prescriptive Possession here.

As far as Crown Land goes, the Crown Estate Act 1961 makes if very difficult for the Crown to dispose of land assets - they are required by the Act to derrive an invome form them (the surplus of which ends up in the public purse). That said, I have sold on behalf of the Crown Estate small parcels of land, but these were generally areas of foreshore which were prone to flooding and were not capable of derriving an income. I have also just recently bought a small triangle of land from the Crown but it was land locked by other land we own so there was no access to this.

Nomada if you need an emailable OS map, PM me and I can knock one up for you for free.

[Nomada]

Hey guys, thanks ofr the responses. I was considering seeing if I could buy it wih a view to turning it into a home and very small small holding! However, I've gone down a different route now coz I couldn't get any support on this from my bloke or my family, however I've ended up buying some woodland in North Wales! It did however look like someone must have at least taken care of it, because the grass never seemed to get too long. I'd been looking at it for years, it was on our walking route to our favourite camping spot.

[Thurston Garden]

Excellent! Are you going to live in the woods? Have you seen Tony Wrench's roundhouse?

[Nomada]

Excellent! Are you going to live in the woods?

Sadly not, it's really hard to, the planners would rather give planning permission to property developers or supermarkets to build over greenbelt land. What, bitter, me? Then again, they let Ben Law live in his, but he had been working the land for decades!

Have you seen Tony Wrench's roundhouse?

Yes, it's wonderful! Why can't more people be allowed to live like that! I'd love to live in a round house!