Parking space not on Land Reg plan

[Dawn87]

Hi,

We are in the early stages of buying a leasehold flat. The estate agent (in person and on the property advert) said the property includes off-road parking in front of the property (a driveway). I've just downloaded a plan from the Land Registry and the boundary includes a bit of garden next to the drive but the driveway itself seems to be outside the boundary.

Obviously we'll get our solicitors to do all these checks properly but it's just causing me some concern. Is there any way the drive does still belong to the property even if its outside the Land Registry boundary? E.g. some sort of long-standing agreement with the freeholder?

On a separate note, is there any way we can check neighbours' rights of access? We have received contradictory information from different people at the estate agents.

Thanks
Dawn

[Dawn87]

Thanks all - sounds like my concerns are not unwarranted. We've asked our solicitors to prioritise getting clarification on these issues so hopefully there will be reasonable explanations for it all. Fingers crossed...

[wfd_property]

Hmmm. As someone who would self-convey, I would ask the agents for a number of documents and then be concerned if they weren't forthcoming.

Re the parking space, it sounds like the typical leasehold flats issue where the space is in reality a communal space but where the previous occupier has claimed it as his own.

I would use the latter as reason to negotiate an amount off, further down the process.

[leaseholder64]

Assuming the last conveyancing operation was not ages ago, you can get the lease and the title deeds for the neighbour, from the Land Registry. I think it typically costs £3 for the title register and £9 each for the lease, and other deeds.

[Dawn87]

Interesting you say that...

What started all this was the estate agent informed us the vendors had needed to take down a shed due to a technicality on the lease. They later mentioned they only had to take it down because the neighbours had complained to the freeholder saying there should be an access gate where the shed is (implying the neighbours have access rights we didn't know about). This also raises stirrings of a dispute with neighbours (again, not something the vendor mentioned when we asked about neighbours at the viewing). In a subsequent call with a different person at the estate agents, they said the vendors had told them the freeholder had asked for the shed to be removed but not as a result of a neighbour's complaint, that there were no issues with the neighbours, and gave further confusing information about whether the neighbours have access or not.

After all this we were quite confused so emailed the estate agents requesting clarification but they are now saying we need to get our solicitors to ask all of this. My partner asked for the name of the freeholder so we could contact them for info (I'm not sure that's the best idea but that's not the point) and they refused, saying our solicitor needs to make the request. (We've now got the freeholder's name from the Land Registry docs anyway.) This has left me feeling both irritated and a little concerned they may be hiding something! Then again, there seems little point in hiding things that will surface sooner or later - wouldn't most vendors (and their agents) rather be upfront and honest rather than risk the possibility of us pulling out later in the sale process?

So no, in response to your post, not sure they will give us a copy of the lease!

[theartfullodger]

Any reason why you can't ask vendor for it? If they get funny that tells you something

[Dawn87]

Ok - thanks. Presumably the only way we can get hold of the lease is from our solicitors obtaining it from the vendor? Think we're just going to have to go with the flow on this one and hope we won't need to withdraw later in the sale process.

[theartfullodger]

Check the lease (& read it carefully anyway, a couple of times). There may be a right to park in a general area rather than ownership of a particular section.