Statts1976uk Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 My parents have just got in touch with me and are a bit concerned as they have just found out that the local council owns the front and rear gardens of their ex-council house. The house itself was out of local authority control several years before they bought it and now they are worried that they do not have control over their own garden after owning the property for the last 10 years. Do they have the right to assume ownership of the land after all this time? Fife Council are not being very helpful over this issue. I will be consulting their conveyancer when I get back down south to see what’s going on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Real Maroonblood Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 1 hour ago, Statts1976uk said: My parents have just got in touch with me and are a bit concerned as they have just found out that the local council owns the front and rear gardens of their ex-council house. The house itself was out of local authority control several years before they bought it and now they are worried that they do not have control over their own garden after owning the property for the last 10 years. Do they have the right to assume ownership of the land after all this time? Fife Council are not being very helpful over this issue. I will be consulting their conveyancer when I get back down south to see what’s going on. What they own will be in their title deeds. Also land registry will have the information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Kaiser Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 Stick a flag in the land and claim it..... it worked in the past. Or invite the council out then bagsie it infront of them.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Statts1976uk Posted September 3, 2018 Author Share Posted September 3, 2018 (edited) I got a reply about 30 minutes after posting on here from the council who were very helpful and much, much quicker than I expected! It’s all been sorted, their house had all the land transferred when it left public authority ownership in 1983. What started this all was their neighbours who discovered whilst sorting out all their own affairs was that the council still owned a four foot wide patch of land in their garden that wasn’t legally sorted out when they bought their property. Needless to say my parents minds have been put at rest, good old Fife Council for sorting it all out so quickly! Edited September 3, 2018 by Statts1976uk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morgan Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 2 hours ago, Der Kaiser said: Stick a flag in the land and claim it..... it worked in the past. Or invite the council out then bagsie it infront of them.... As Eddie Izzard once famously said - ‘do you have a fleg’? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jambo-Jimbo Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 2 hours ago, Statts1976uk said: I got a reply about 30 minutes after posting on here from the council who were very helpful and much, much quicker than I expected! It’s all been sorted, their house had all the land transferred when it left public authority ownership in 1983. What started this all was their neighbours who discovered whilst sorting out all their own affairs was that the council still owned a four foot wide patch of land in their garden that wasn’t legally sorted out when they bought their property. Needless to say my parents minds have been put at rest, good old Fife Council for sorting it all out so quickly! Well I'm glad you've got it sorted and didn't need to contact the Scottish land registry, because by all accounts it's a bit of a shambles there at the moment. Bought my house 19 months ago and I'm still waiting on the title deeds, read an article a couple of months back, which said that due to a combination of cut-backs, experienced staff leaving and the transfer of data from paper records to digital had caused huge delays in the processing of new title deeds, what also hasn't helped was when they have been transfering property details from the old OS map references many didn't match the current GPS details, you can imagine the hassle that's caused, anyway the average delay is about 2 years but the ones from 2015 were taking priority, yip 2015, some folks have been waiting 3 years on their title deeds, of course this is severely impacting some people's ability to obtain/renew mortgages or to sell their property, simply because they can't prove ownership. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Real Maroonblood Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 36 minutes ago, Jambo-Jimbo said: Well I'm glad you've got it sorted and didn't need to contact the Scottish land registry, because by all accounts it's a bit of a shambles there at the moment. Bought my house 19 months ago and I'm still waiting on the title deeds, read an article a couple of months back, which said that due to a combination of cut-backs, experienced staff leaving and the transfer of data from paper records to digital had caused huge delays in the processing of new title deeds, what also hasn't helped was when they have been transfering property details from the old OS map references many didn't match the current GPS details, you can imagine the hassle that's caused, anyway the average delay is about 2 years but the ones from 2015 were taking priority, yip 2015, some folks have been waiting 3 years on their title deeds, of course this is severely impacting some people's ability to obtain/renew mortgages or to sell their property, simply because they can't prove ownership. I just moved house recently and received the deeds with in a few weeks of moving. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dboy Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 6 minutes ago, The Real Maroonblood said: I just moved house recently and received the deeds with in a few weeks of moving. As did I, however (not that I understand the ins and outs) here are a couple of articles in reference to J-J's point http://www.journalonline.co.uk/Magazine/62-9/1023730.aspx https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-44627369 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl Fredrickson Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 The issue with the delay is with transfers from the old deeds based register (Sasine register, over 400 years old) to the newer plans based system (first started in 1979). Not all areas of Scotland went onto the new system at the same time, with the last couple going on about 10 years ago. If your house is already on the land register and is sold etc then this transaction can be done electronically and the vast majority of these will be completed in a week. The issue, as has been mentioned above, is a combination of a few things. A large % of experienced staff have left, there are also two on running projects taking up a lot of resources 1) The land register (new system) is to be totally complete within a set time (think it is about 5 years of a 10 year ten). This means that ALL property should be on the new system but isnt as easy as it sounds due to a number of factors including no transaction on someones property and landowners of huge areas not interested in it. 2) Govt target for all systems to be digitalis. Again a time was set for this which may or may not be realistic due to the complexity of the various registers and systems that the Registers of Scotland deal with. All of this is no reason or excuse for the huge backlog that they currently have but in their defence, many, many conveyancing firms leave a lot to be desired with the quality of work submitted to Registers of Scotland. Glad that the OP got things sorted out quickly - it is good to hear a council getting credit for a change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lfhearts Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 I blame the management at Ros they could not run a piss up in a brewery what organisation let's their best staff go and keeps most of the chaff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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