Unregistered land

[vicky whitworth]

Not strictly a period property question but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the following:
At our parish council meeting last month it was announced that any unregistered land that wasn't registered by 2012 would come into ownership of the Crown and that as a result our Lord of the Manor was planning to register any unregistered land in his name to avoid it becoming Crown property.

Surely this can't be right? We have a farm track running down to our cottage over which we have legal easements to access our cottage. The farm track is unregistered and its ownership is unknown. believe me, our solicitor tried to established ownership when we bought he place and in the four years we have been here we have asked around and are pretty sure that if anyone thought they owned it they would have stepped forward by now.

We don't particularly want to own it because with ownership comes responsibilities but we'd rather own it than have someone else own it.

Thoughts?
Thank you

 

[JohnB]

As I understand it, you can't just register land in your own name. It used to be that if you can prove that you had exclusive use of land for 12 years you could register it, but that has now changed. If you can prove exclusive use for 12 years, the Land Registry may now give you Possessory Title, but a genuine owner could still claim it. So I don't think anyone could just register it.

If it's true that the Crown will grab it all in 2012, there will be rather a lot of bad language coming from this direction, as I have a big problem caused by unregistered land, which is why I'm not asking loads of questions about renovating my house. Maybe I would have taken different action to resolve the problem if I'd know that!

 

[Flyfisher]

We recently had an almost identical situation.

Half of our lane and a large 'splay' at the top of it is not registered although we have the necessary deeds to show it belongs to us. A couple of years ago, someone claiming Lord of the Manor rights tried to claim ownership of the lane, the splay (and, bizarrely, the public road!). We learned about this when LR wrote to us as the owners of neighbouring land. We submitted our counter claim and after much arguing with the Lord of the Manor's solicitor we prevailed and LR rejected the claim. LR also told us that Lord of the Manor rights also had to be formally registered quite soon otherwise they will be lost forever, so this sort of thing is happening all over the country apparently (similar to the Church having to register chancel repair rights soon or lose them forever, so all part of a mass 'tidy up' it would appear).

However, when we tried to formally register our ownership, LR said that a previous conveyance for the top of the lane and splay was not sufficient for us to register it. Apparently, the phrase "in fee simple" was not used in the conveyance, which has some legal significance I can't remember, but it means LR would not accept it, even though they were quite happy that we could prove ownership. We even asked if we could register it through adverse possession, since we could easily prove our ownership, along with the previous owners for at least a few hundred years, but LR said this would not be possible because there are some other houses that have a right of way across the upper part of the lane, thus we had not "excluded the public" for the required period of time as needed for adverse possession.

So, we're left with the odd position of owning a piece of land we can't formally register, even though we can prove our ownership to the satisfaction of LR such that they refute anyone else's claim. Goodness knows what will happen when the registration deadline occurs.

I'm not sure if any of this helps you though. If your lane only serves your cottage then it might be worth trying the adverse possession thing, but my guess is that you'll find it difficult to prove that you (and the previous owners) have "excluded the public" all that time, unless it is gated perhaps? Is there anything in your deeds about the upkeep of the lane?

In practice, the ownership is probably less important than your legal right of way. Whoever claims ownership, you will still have a right of way enshrined in your deeds. Same with us, so we're not unduly worried. But, as far as we can tell, if we really can't register the land by the deadline then it will revert to crown land, which seems somewhat unfair - unless LR decides to relax their criteria for registration.

Some interesting reading here: http://www.landreg.gov.uk/assets/library/documents/public_guide_016.pdf

 

[JohnB]

However, when we tried to formally register our ownership, LR said that a previous conveyance for the top of the lane and splay was not sufficient for us to register it. Apparently, the phrase "in fee simple" was not used in the conveyance, which has some legal significance I can't remember, but it means LR would not accept it, even though they were quite happy that we could prove ownership.

That's interesting. The owner of the land I have a problem with has just applied to register it, but "in fee simple" isn't mentioned in the conveyance from 1966 when they bought it. The Land Registry have just written to me to ask if I object, so it looks like they are prepared to register it.

Sorting out the problem of unregistered land is a good idea. It would certainly avoid a lot of problems.

 

[Flyfisher]

Perhaps they're registering it through the adverse possession or some other route? My understanding is that LR would write to adjacent property owners in such cases to check for objections. I don't think they would write to anyone if the conveyance was "in fee simple" because that gives absolute and unencumbered ownership, so there's no need to check with anyone else.

Fee Simple
n. Absolute title to land which is free from other claims against the title and is used to transfer title. The title can be sold or passed to another through a will or inheritance. The phrase is used to demonstrate that the fee is not conditional, determinable, or fee tail.

 

[vicky whitworth]

This is really interesting as apparently 50% of land in England is unregistered so these issues are going to affect lots of people. We probably can't claim adverse possession as we can't exclude the public from the lane as it has a public footpath running down the middle! Our Deeds say nothing about us maintaining the lane - it's just what we have to do to be able to get to our cottage - but we do have legal easements giving us access rights.

Our Lord of the Manor isn't an incomer and he loves our village and usually wants to do what is right by people so I can't think why he would want to claim it. I accept that if he has it 'in fee simple' then it does belong to him but I worry that the LR may not be astute enough to be able to check the precise ownership of a strip of land 4m x and 350m long as it seems that boundary lines are often very clear on Deeds. I just hope that if he does try to register it the LR notice we live adjacent to some of it and inform us so we have a chance to query it. I might try to flag this up to them.

I thought I would also mention it to him in passing that if he owns it we will be asking him to maintain it fit for a vehicle to pass over it (as when we owned a shared driveway in the past we were required to do this) as he has no money that might put him off.

I like the unknown ownership present status - it's mysterious and I can pretend I know it!

 

[AMc]

FWIW and it ain't much - if his Lordship wants to register it, you don't and you have your right of access enshrined then I would support his application even if he can't afford full maintenance. I'd sooner have a local who loves the village to deal with than the crown.

 

[TimM]

Can I just add, that the 2012 date is the land registry's target for ensuring that all land is registered - I don't think there's anything in the legislation to pass the land to the crown if its not! (Not sure this would be compatible with human rights law...).

 

[Flyfisher]

That's an interesting point although I'm not sure it would be a case of the land "passing" to the Crown estate because I believe the Crown is the ultimate owner by default. If no-one can prove ownership then it must, by default, belong to the crown. All my own 'bar-room lawyer' suppositions though.

In English common law theory, the Crown has radical title or the allodium of all land in England, meaning that it is the ultimate "owner" of all land.

Incidentally, Vicky, you're lucky your Lord of the Manor resides locally and is community-spirited. "Ours" apparently lives in Wales and has collected such titles from all over the country, apparently with the intention (among other things I presume) of registering road verges to be subsequently used as lucrative ransom strips.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Incidentally, Vicky, you're lucky your Lord of the Manor resides locally and is community-spirited. "Ours" apparently lives in Wales and has collected such titles from all over the country, apparently with the intention (among other things I presume) of registering road verges to be subsequently used as lucrative ransom strips.

Not guilty - honest!

Thanks also - for today's learned word, "allodium". Sadly, I think it'll be a while til I can drop it casually into a conversation!