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I didn't want to derail the Boundary Dispute Thread, so thought I'd start a new one.
We are currently looking to buy a small area of garden from a neighbour. We are on very good terms with them. Neither in a huge rush, but I would like to get things moving in a legal sense before the summer.
Us. Big house, very small garden.
Them. Small house, huge garden.
Before they bought, there had been numerous attempts to knock their house down and build a couple of other houses on their plot. All refused, with very clear guidance from the council that it will never be allowed to happen.
We have both moved in within the past 2yrs, so happy to do without searches as we have recent ones that have been shared so we are happy with what we are buying.
It would be a cash purchase.
Both properties mortgaged.
Insignificant sized piece of their garden which has no other potential development purposes, and they do not want, it will nearly double the size of our garden.
I imagine that they would need to let their mortgage co know, but we are happy to keep it under a separate title for now. Our previous house has two titles and it didn't seem to matter, but we could look to combine when we get it revalued when we change mortgages at the end of our next fixed term in 4.5yrs.
We have had a couple of quotes from local solicitors and it seems to be about £850-£1000 for each transaction. South East, and solicitors very busy at the moment, so not desperate for work. We expect to pay fees for both sale and purchase, so we are happy to save £2k for a bit of form filling.
Does anyone have any experience of doing this?
The forms don't seem to be £2k worth of complicated https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/registered-titles-part-transfer-tp1
But it feels like the sort of thing that we wouldn't want to mess up.
Bonus Magic Bump Post
If we get a new title for the parcel of land, I would like to put some restrictive covenants in the deeds if possible; the sort of thing that somebody will look at in 200 years and wonder what the hell went on to make them need that covenant.
Any suggestions?
I think you’re underestimating the “letting their mortgage co know” part. Their mortgage is secured against the whole of their property including the piece of land you want to buy. Releasing the charge against the piece of land to allow it to be sold will take work and they may require it’s done by a solicitor on their panel. Surely also their mortgage co will want to revalue without the piece of land your buying to make sure there is sufficient remaining security for their mortgage.
I've done it a few times on unmortgaged property and its pretty simple. A couple of forms and a visit to the land registry. As above, the mortgage does complicate it but it should be solvable, especially if they have plenty of equity. I couldn't find a good online guide. The .gov website where you get the forms has a guide to filling them out which helps. There are also a couple of good books, one by "Which?", one from Lawpack. They both have stuff about dealing with a mortgage. If you aren't in a rush maybe buy the books, download the forms and see if it all makes sense. If it feels too complicated then you'll be forking out for a solicitor.
Not understanding why you'd want to restrict your ability to do stuff with your land with covenants. I could understand them requesting it.
Bought a part of a neighbours garden 6 years ago, cost me £6k and another £1k for legal stuff, the neighbours wanted it in writing that no buildings over 2.5m were allowed, and both of us were mortgaged at the time.
I though a grand was alright to make sure it was watertight and done properly tbh.
Built a summerhouse on there, big shed, nice big lawned area and the highest part gives a great sunset view. It'll add more than 7k when we go to sell I reckon.
I can see why the OP would like to keep it a garden, if it's a nice space.
Releasing the charge against the piece of land to allow it to be sold will take work and they may require it’s done by a solicitor on their panel. Surely also their mortgage co will want to revalue without the piece of land your buying to make sure there is sufficient remaining security for their mortgage.
Yes. Probably underestimating what is involved, I guess that we are at the behest of what their mortgage company demand, but not sure what value a solicitor adds. I thought that releasing the charge is a process between the people we are buying from, their mortgage company, and a surveyor acting on behalf of their mortgage company.
Not understanding why you’d want to restrict your ability to do stuff with your land with covenants
Maybe it is a silly idea, but something like "no cattle auctions to be carried out after sunset" being included in the deeds of a small parcel of urban garden would make me smile.
Yes. Probably underestimating what is involved, I guess that we are at the behest of what their mortgage company demand, but not sure what value a solicitor adds. I thought that releasing the charge is a process between the people we are buying from, their mortgage company, and a surveyor acting on behalf of their mortgage company.
your solicitor is there to make sure that is done right. <£1.7k now makes sure that your future sale is pain-free. Not doing it right today could mean you end up with a mess to sort in the middle of you or your neighbour trying to sell your houses. Not sure if you've already told the solicitor you want to add weird waste of time covenants - but if you did it's unlikely to have sounded like "this job is really simple and this client is trying to do things as simply and cost-effectively as possible".
I'm considering a similar, but different situation.
neighbours house, big. very large garden. my house small, very small rear garden tat backs on to the side of their rear garden.
back in the mists of time, the original owner of the land the neighbours house is built on, messed up and only have the cottages, mine included 7m length rear gardens each when dividing up the land. long story short, minimum from LA is 9m length (or equiv m2 per bedroom), so he said he'd add on 2m to each garden when selling the rear plot etc. of course this never legally happened, but our new neighbour agreed to let us use the additional 2m, as a gentleman's agreement (this is scotland).
hes' put up a 6ft border fence around it, planted a hedge round it, arranged a bbq house build and new greenhouse around this little sticky out bit (it's 2x5m) and i'm using it as my own, no problems.
However, I'll probably want to buy it off him, at some point. How on earth do you go about valuing that?
an estimate I came up with, based on his initial plot purchase value was about £160/m2
I suppose he can ask what it's worth to us. but I don't think it'd impact the value of the house at all as it's such a small bit. however, the value to us would mean that it would allow us to put up some more permanent structures and use the garden a little more confidently.
Where do you start to get an idea? (aside from speaking to him,as it'll not happen that soon I don't' think.)
You could say that to use his purchase price is too much, as it's not as if you can put a house on it? granted it was 6 years ago, but our wee bit of garden is approx 100m^2 and was valued by a surveyor at £6k.
Scotland too btw.
Where do you start to get an idea? (
One method is to get the estate agents in.
Get them to
1. Value their house with the bit of garden
2 Value their house with the bit of garden removed
3. Calculate the difference
4. Value your house without the additional garden
5. Value your house with the additional bit of garden
6. Calculate the difference.
7. Use either of the two figures, or an average of them.
For our purchase, we just spoke to the neighbours, and agreed on a figure between us that seems fair, but this has not been approved by their mortgage co yet.