The Madness of the English & Welsh Land & Property Legal System

[Diasi]

Just when I planned a stress-free day I've come across an article about a squatter who is claiming the ownership of the land he occupies.

I've been aware of adverse possession for many years & several years ago I reported pikeys who had taken over a plot of land, & fenced it off, to make the owner aware of the potential danger.

The land has now been sold & is a small trading estate.

But the subject still pisses me off every time I read about it.

Squatters' rights: the facts

• A long-term squatter can become the registered owner of property or land they've occupied without the owner's permission if they have occupied the property continuously for 10 years (12 years if it's not registered with HM Land Registry) (Read more from gov.uk)
• If the property is registered, squatters must fill in a form for adverse possession, complete and sign a written 'statement of truth' and send them to the HM Land Registry Citizen Centre.
• HM Land Registry will decide if their application is valid and will let the property owner know.
• If the property is unregistered, they must apply for first registration and complete and sign a written statement of truth.
• HM Land Registry will inspect the property, decide if their application is valid and let the property owner know.
• They can try to come to an agreement with the owners if they object, while a tribunal can decide who owns the property if they cannot agree or do not want to.

https://yhoo.it/3Neh7xd

[Michael Rolls]

as usual, bloody ridiculous

[Diasi]

as usual, bloody ridiculous

The law in Scotland is slightly different as adverse possession has been replaced by prescriptive ownership which makes it more difficult, but still not impossible, for a squatter to claim land.

Every time I read about adverse possession my blood pressure goes through the roof.

[klondike]

There do seem to be many parcels of land where there is no known owner. They often become dumps for scrap cars and the like. I would have thought if somebody had some land and squatters arrived 10 years ought to be long enough to get them evicted.

[Diasi]

A person who does not own the land should never be able to claim it no matter how long they may have been using it.

There is hardly any land that isn't owned by someone but there is a lot of land that isn't registered with the Land Registry which is a relatively new function.

[Michael Rolls]

on a few occasions when planning health centres, we had complicated sites, parts of which had no known owners. We (Surrey County Council) were able to exercises a compulsory purchase order so that the scheme could go ahead, This is fifty years and more ago, don't know if that power still exists, and for the life of me, rack my brain as I may, I can't remember how the land was paid for - presumably into the the Treasury's coffers, but that's a presumption not a fact. We did, of course, have to publish our intention in the local press and possibly nationally as well, in case an unknow owner actually existed and could come forward with a claim. To the best of my memory that never happened.

[Diasi]

Public bodies can & do purchase land compulsorily, half of a new-build village in West Yorkshire was bought to be demolished for the HS2 line.

I'm talking about pikey chancers who try to land-grab.

[Michael Rolls]

sorry, Phil, I was less than clear (not for the first time). It was the specific process for land of unknown ownership I wondered about. As you say, public bodies do have compulsory purchases powers

[Diasi]

sorry, Phil, I was less than clear (not for the first time). It was the specific process for land of unknown ownership I wondered about. As you say, public bodies do have compulsory purchases powers

I would imagine that a public body would compensate the rightful landowner in a case such as you describe, if they came forward after the event.

The pikey chancers just want to grab any land they can.

They knew full well that the land I reported them for was not abandoned land as there was a potential development sign on it.

[Michael Rolls]

yes indeed. In fact had a case not unlike such a situation. We needed an ambulance station in Godalming. Now, an ambulance station is nothing fancy, effectively just a garage and two or three rooms for office, crew room, etc.
As it happened, a developer had already built a store which had what we needed and was desperate to unload it - cash problems. We bought it - and that's when the fun began. The builder has misinterpreted the architect's design and had put up the building slightly askew on a very tight site. In so doing he had encroached on seventeen (!) adjoining properties, none to any great extent, from memory the smallest incursion was something like 10 square yards, but obviously we had to recompense the adjacent owners. Even so, it was still a bargain, a good bit cheaper - and quicker - than starting from scratch on a virgin site.