Land sale legalities.

[Bill]

Today I joined a protest about the sale of some public land by the local council. I was wondering if anyone here can point me to a simple to understand precis of the current planning or legal situation.

In this particular case, my understanding of the current position is that the land was covenanted to the local community by someone with the condition that it should remain open space. Any covenant documents appear to have been lost. This was raised in the past when the council first proposed the sale, and the council took legal advice and backed down.

They have now re-advertised the land for auction. A councillor attended the protest and said that the situation was now different because the council has advice that it is a different body from "the community" and so can just decide to sell any public land. He also said that recent changes in planning law appear to have resulted in a situation whereby a council can take any piece of public land and sell it.

There are other areas close by which have similar covenants, so this is almost certainly the soft target for the thin end of the wedge.

[Nick Odell]

A starting point might well be to cut exactly what you've written here and paste it into uk.legal.moderated.

Nick

[Iggy]

replying to Bill, Iggy wrote: I'm not directly familiar with the U.K. stuff, but any and all property is owned by the State (province, King, Queen, etc.) and ALL others are renters. Therefore, the purchase or sale of any property falls under the same legalities as Eminent Domain or your Compulsory Purchase. If the "owner" feels the purchase, sale or eviction is necessary, then its legal.

The idiot public slave peons' only legal course of action is to buy the property and receive approval for the existing use to continue. It should only be purchased by a Civic Association or other Non-Profit and it will no longer be "Public Land" nor by default be open to the public. You'll have to pay taxes and maintain it under all conditions and obtain continuous Liability Insurance.

Given the right location and even size, operating costs can be easily covered by renting the space out for events, sports playing and practice or even as just a toll type of use. A simple collection box could be all that's needed with enough made-conscious users or you could fence it off and require a nominal admission fee at an automated gate. I don't know if any of that's possible or up for consideration, but just thought I'd mention it.

[Bill]

Thanks, Nick. Have done as suggested.

[Nightjar]

This is a restrictive covenant and is only enforceable by a beneficiary of the covenant. It will normally be tied to one (or sometimes more) property in the area (the dominant land) and the beneficiary will be the original owner of that property. In order for the benefit of the covenant to pass to subsequent owners of the dominant land, it must meet four tests:

The covenant must be restrictive, rather than a positive covenant, which is the case here.

The covenant must benefit the dominant land, which is common, but may depend upon their relative locations.

It is intended to pass, which is the default case. I.e. the covenant must not expressly state that it cannot pass.

The buyer of the land has notice of the covenant. For registered land, that would mean it has to appear on the Land Registry documentation or, for unregistered land, in the Land Charges Register.

So, the first step is to discover whether the covenant is recorded at the Land Registry or on the Land Charges Register. That should also tell you who benefits from the covenant. From what you say, that might be 'the community' and defining that could be fun for the lawyers. The beneficiary would then need to seek to enforce the covenant against the council. I suspect you will also need to have a large legal fees fund.

[Brian Gaff]

I notice that around here also there is a call for information. In this case they want the general public to look for underused land even if they do not own it that could be used for development. In theory this could for example be our long gardens of course, and I think its the thin end of the wedge acting like this.If they have now got new powers to get land sold no mater who has it or what is on it I can see trouble ahead big time. Brian

[Nightjar]

That sounds like a confused interpretation of medieval law and, even then, it would not have been true. Peers of the Realm and the Church also held land in their own right. Those lands may have been granted by the Crown and the Crown could revoke a title and seize the lands, but unless that happened, the land did not belong to the Crown.

Today, anybody with a freehold to land is the permanent and absolute owner of that land.

[GB]

CPO powers are absolutely draconian, unfortunately. Many councils are under central government pressure to provide a certain number of building sites each year, and if that means a development on half your garden that's what they'll do. You'll theoretically be compensated adequately, but in practice you won't.

[Iggy]

replying to Nightjar, Iggy wrote: You may want to re-read your comment. If someone else can revoke it and toss them out, they never owned it and were just tenants...Freehold is no different, except it expires on its own if the owner exercised nothing else.

[Nightjar]

Except that seizure of lands only happened if the incumbent broke the law and the law prescribed forfeiture of land as a penalty (e.g. the Treason Act of 1534) or the seizure was authorised by an Act of Parliament (e.g. the dissolution of the monasteries). OTOH, when Edward Longshanks wanted the Isle of Wight, he had to buy it from Isabella de Fortibus for 6000 Marks. Had she been a tenant of the Crown, he would only have had to wait a few days for her to die to reclaim the property.

[Chris Bartram]

Where dos your understanding come from? Sometimes Chinese whispers can gain a lot of ground.

FWIW, a similar situation near here was resolved with a land swap, so that the area for public use remained the same and was a continuous area.

[Iggy]

replying to Nightjar, Iggy wrote: I really don't know why you're going to such extents to be wrong. Today's world is no different and only a fully refined fraud bestowed upon the ignorant masses. Case in point, Isle of Wight wasn't part of Edward's Kingdom it was a whole separate Kingdom (Whitwara), of which Isabel was the last of that "royal" line. Edward came back with a lie that she sold it to him and simply took it over, after she "magically" died just days after his poisonous visit.

[Nightjar]

It ceased to be a separate kingdom after the Norman Conquest. Despite Isabella sometimes being referred to as the Queen of the Isle of Wight, she was not royalty, but merely a the incumbent of a Lordship created by William the Conqueror.

She was dying anyway. Whether she actually agreed to the sale, or he simply claimed that (and paid the money to her estate) is something that scholars disagree on.

[Roger Hayter]

If you read the deeds of a freehold property you will realise that Iggy is largely right. It is certainly true that the state can take it off you if it wantst to, with monetary compensation. Though for most practical purposes you are right.

[Bill]

My understanding comes from a brief chat with the owner of a bungalow bordering on the land, plus what my wife believes from what I assume was gossip when she heard it many years ago.

The bungalow owner is the son of the person who built and lived in the bungalow previously. He is not young. The bungalow was built on part of the land to which the covenant applies, but the current owner seems to have no details.

I am trying to investigate further.

[Huge]

Sigh.

[Steve Walker]

It might be worth you contacting the following to find out what they have found and done in a similar case:

Our area has been having a similar fight over land that was donated, with a covenant that it should be retained for the recreational use of the people of Flixton. In the '70s it was threatened with development and a councillor ensured that it was turned into a municipal golf course to protect it. Recently the golf course was deliberately run down, declared to be losing money and closed. Now they want to build 750 homes there - despite all the local infrastructure being totally overloaded. The council state that the covenant was with Urmston Urban District Council, which no longer exists after their powers were absorbed into Trafford Council and as UUDC no longer exists, Trafford Council state that they cannot be bound by it.

So far they have backed down to half the number of homes after a prolonged fight, but locally we are still fighting to stop it completely. The latest suggestion (which happens to be what I suggested at the start) is to turn it into a woodland.

SteveW

[Iggy]

replying to Nightjar, Iggy wrote: So, what's your point...beyond talking about Isabel's daughter who had nothing to do with nothing. Go do some research, you'll see I'm right...right on down to the need for approved use as a park.

[Nightjar]

On 04-Dec-17 8:27 PM, Roger Hayter wrote: ..

As in not at all. The land does not ultimately belong to the Crown.

Which is quite different from the claim that the land belongs to the Crown and that occupiers are only tenants.

A compulsory purchase order can only be made if an Act of Parliament has ruled that it is in the public interest to grant that power to the acquiring authority. Even then, the first step is usually to try to buy the land by agreement. If, after due process, a CPO is confirmed, the acquiring authority will normally still try to buy the property by agreement rather than enforce the CPO. So, yes they can take the land, but only under certain circumstances, not by right, only after a long process, with options to object, and if the landowner persistently refuses to sell.

[Nightjar]

As you said at the beginning, you are not familiar with UK stuff.