Suddenly claiming land ?

[john east]

Where we live there was a strip of grassed over land running between some houses that was covering a culvert that was a land drain running down from a nearby hill.

According to the water board such ground over a land drain is the responsibilty of the local council. But the local council seem to have no record of this being their responsibilty.

Recently a house has built an ugly looking fence over this formerly grassed strip of land. And neighbours say that this neighbour who is the fence builder according to the land registry owns this land.

I suspect they have not actually checked the land registry and are just taking the word of the rampant fence builder.

Is there any way that someone could just apply for and get, ownership of a strip of land that formerly was unused and seemingly had no claims upon it?

[John Williamson]

To check the Land registry details on a parcel of land cost me about four pounds last time I did it, and can be done online using the registry's map interface.

Yes, but it's not immediate. See here for more details:-

summary, they must have "factual possession" for at least ten years.

[The Natural Philosopher]

yes if you grab it and 'maintain it' for 12 years.

But in this case, you should check the land registry yourself.

[Onetap]

You can get the details of the owners from the land registry for houses or land, if it has changed hands in recent years. If it hasn't recently been sold, it won't be on the electronic system, but there will be paper deeds to prove ownership.

Squatters' Rights, it used to be that you could get a possessory title after 12 years of adverse possession, but the law has been changed in the past 5 or 10 years and is now more complicated. Have a search, there a Garden Law forum somewhere on the web.