Unauthorised right of way and land development

Unauthorised right of way and land development

Author
Discussion

CSLchappie

Original Poster:

432 posts

203 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
Complicated situation will try and keep it as clear as possible!



20 years about my old man bought a piece of land, A, B and C, which is nested in the corner of small development of 60’s bungalows. C is actually a piece of the road and strip of pavement adjoining onto the plot.
He built a house in A, lived there for a few years then sold it on 16 years ago and moved abroad.
B is a strip of drive with a wall and trees planted along the right edge (the squiggly line)
He retained ownership of B and C after selling A.
The new owner of A has right of way across B and C onto their property only. They do not have right of way across B & C onto D.

All of the blue is private housing, 60’s style bungalows and semis.

D is a plot of land only accessible by a narrow footpath between two houses (the thin strip to the left)
For years no-one knew who owned it but Dad always has an eye on the future.
The only other potential access to D is across B & C, or by purchasing one of the other houses adjoining it and knocking it down to create a driveway wide enough.

A couple of years ago (Brexit) Dad starts getting itchy feet and starts to investigate who actually owned D, as it was not listed with the land registry.

After 18 months of digging, ancestry, local investogators etc he finds out who owns it.

However, the land registry had given him a bum steer and sent him off on a wild goose chase, it transpires that the current owner only lives a few minutes around the corner, a young girl distantly related to a spinster who had title to D in the early 1900’s

Dad ends up being a week too late, and discovers last summer that the girl has sold plot D to the owners of A (the same people Dad sold to) The kicker is she sold for £25k as she just wanted some cash after finishing university.

You can probably get 4, maybe 5 houses on plot D by modern standards. Given that its in one of the more desirable suburbs of Nottingham I’m guessing market value (if you had access and planning) would be in the region of at least £250-300,000.

Now it gets interesting, in the intervening months, owner of A is either very thick or trying it on, they rip down the wall between B and D, pull up the trees, spend a fair amount of money on putting up some gates and have the whole site cleared after +15 years of it being left to ruin (there was an old chap who used to tend to it while Dad lived there)

Dad contacts the owners of A, opens up a dialog about the subject of access and politely reminds them who owns B and C. The conversation has been cordial, but no progress made and Dad ultimately wants some of D to build on himself. I suspect that other family members are involved as the owners of A will be 80+ now.

Dad is in no rush and is happy to wait a while longer if that’s what it takes. I’d be interested in what the collective brains on PH think, aside from doing silly things with frozen sausages, what would your approach be if your end goal was getting a piece of D? If relations turn sour what likely restitution would you seek for the unauthorised works done to B?

Alucidnation

16,810 posts

169 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
I would suggest your dad sells owner A the rest of the bits of land and forgets about it.

If he was a good negotiator he could get good money for them.

paintman

7,669 posts

189 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
Alucidnation said:
I would suggest your dad sells owner A the rest of the bits of land and forgets about it.

If he was a good negotiator he could get good money for them.
And then spend the money enjoying what's left of his life while he's still healthy & able.

curlywurly

34 posts

144 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
What are your dad's plans for the land? It sounds like it should be pretty valuable to the people who own D. The people at gardenlaw might have some advice, they are good with boundary issues.

If Google maps still shows the wall and trees between B and D, it might be worth taking a screenshot to show how things used to be.

Alex_6n2

328 posts

198 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
Thread delivers with the first reply.

Excellent.

Durzel

12,232 posts

167 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
If we’re being accurate to the story then A and D should be merged. A owns D. How it came to be procured, and for how much, and how close OP’s Dad was to buying it himself is academic.

The question then simply becomes how valuable or indeed useful are B and C when they’re essentially just isolated plots of land, now only accessible by F?

RSTurboPaul

10,218 posts

257 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
IANAL etc...

... but if you can access D through A (is there enough room between the dwelling and the curtilage of B?), and owner of A has access over B and C as part of the deeds, removing the hedging etc. between B and D would seem neither here nor there, other than requiring remediation/repair to replace that which has been removed, because D could still be accessed through A.

Maybe??

I'm not sure a landowner can just remove rights of access (over C and B) contained within deeds (for A).

I think you need to speak to a land specialist.


I may well also be wrong on this... but if D has effectively been 'converted' into 'residential' planning classification by incorporating into A, that would be (I think) a change of use that would require planning permission to be sought/granted?

anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
it's called a ransom strip for a reason wink

Brads67

3,199 posts

97 months

Friday 21st February 2020
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Someone beats dad to buying plot D so dad holds access to ransom to get cheap land.

Sell the access land and get on with life. He was beaten to it.

surveyor

17,764 posts

183 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
the first reply may be the end result.

But actually the devil is in the detail on this one. Dad needs advice from a good development Surveyor and a specialist solicitor.


Buzz84

1,138 posts

148 months

Saturday 22nd February 2020
quotequote all
Were the wall and trees that have been pulled down on B and therefore owned by your dad? If yes then was it criminal damage for them to get rid of it all?

You also say conversation has been fairly civilised so far, are you able to share their view or what they have said about the situation?

hutchst

3,696 posts

95 months

Saturday 22nd February 2020
quotequote all
surveyor said:
the first reply may be the end result.

But actually the devil is in the detail on this one. Dad needs advice from a good development Surveyor and a specialist solicitor.
Fixed that for you, Mr. Surveyor.

borcy

2,569 posts

55 months

Saturday 22nd February 2020
quotequote all
Can only echo the others, speak to them about selling his strip of land.
I don't see the 'he's happy to wait' wait for what? Its highly unlikely that they are suddenly going to resell.

anonymous-user

53 months

Saturday 22nd February 2020
quotequote all
For A to cut down trees and remove a wall on land they don’t own might prove to be a costly mistake for them. But ultimately in this, I think a+d trumps b+c and the most likely route to resolve this is for a to buy b+c too

Unless the owner of d can be persuaded to sell it at a good profit on their £25k acquisition price that your dad can stomach paying, then I think he is best advised to develop a strategy that extracts maximum value from selling b+c. First of all he should check how robust the access clauses are if a+d are ‘merged’ in some way

Jamescrs

4,445 posts

64 months

Saturday 22nd February 2020
quotequote all
Does A have access to the road without crossing B & C?

If so if your dad starts trying to hold the land to ransom if I was the other party i.would be knocking down A and redeveloping the whole site.

Equally if your dad refuses to sell his land at a reasonable price I would be looking to purchase another property which gives access to the road and develop that way.

I think the real lesson is your dad needs to.sell his strip for market price and move on from it. He has missed the boat.

Roger Irrelevant

2,898 posts

112 months

Saturday 22nd February 2020
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I'm pretty sure that the owners of A having right of access over B and C won't mean that anybody needing access to D will be able to go via A (legally at least). Just because A's owners now own D doesn't mean they can give anybody else rights over B and/or C, so unless the relevant easement is really loosely drafted (doubtful, given that the OP's dad and his solicitor would have been wise to this when they created it), B and C are still a desirable bit of land, with two provisos:

1. Assuming that the owners of A and D are actually planning on developing it. For £25k they may be happy to have a big enclosed garden and may not be overly bothered about access via B/C. If so then any ransom demand may not work.
2. If I've understood the plan correctly there are up to ten other properties over which access to D could ultimately be gained - if a developer could buy any of these (or even just a strip down the side), then that too would render B/C substantially less valuable.

So in short I agree with the first reply - probably best to sell B/C now if A wants it and forget about D.

surveyor

17,764 posts

183 months

Saturday 22nd February 2020
quotequote all
hutchst said:
surveyor said:
the first reply may be the end result.

But actually the devil is in the detail on this one. Dad needs advice from a good development Surveyor and a specialist solicitor.
Fixed that for you, Mr. Surveyor.
Nope, that’s not fixed for me, but whatever.

anonymous-user

53 months

Saturday 22nd February 2020
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Sell it with overage attached.

Matt_E_Mulsion

1,690 posts

64 months

Saturday 22nd February 2020
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Can we have an aerial Google Earth picture just for clarity?

PorkInsider

5,877 posts

140 months

Saturday 22nd February 2020
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Nothing to stop your dad building a wall/fence on his land in front of the gates the cheeky fookers have installed.