Land Registry Searches

[chilliwitch]

We bought our house just over 2 years.Along with surveys etc we obviously had a land registry search which lets you know if anything is going to built near your home in the next 5 years,ours came back with nothing.We have 3 fields behind/beside our house which we have now found out are going to have houses built on them and a new road going to them.The owner of the field has died and his family have sold the fields to the local district council.Does anyone know where we stand with complaining about this?I have tried the local council but got no joy.I'm not a moaning old bizzy body but my children play on the fields and football pitch and the houses will be more or less overlooking my house/garden.Sry it's long winded!!!Any views/help would be appreciated.

[Oneeyedtic]

The search which is relevant to your problem is the Local Authority search not the Land Registry search. Local Authority searches ask questions about future development that might affect your property such as roads, housing and shops. If the possibility of this development was known at the time you purchased and you were not told then you may have a claim for negligence against your solicitor or Local Authority. If it has been decided upon since you purchased then you have no claim against anyone. In either (or any) case you will be unable to stop the development.

[ursula62]

You may be able to place an objection to the planning application if it has not yet been approved, although there is no guarantee that you would be able to prevent building on the land. 

In the first instance, you should contact the planning department of your local authority to find out if the official application has been made yet.

If the council has already approved the application then there is nothing you can do short of lying down in front of the bulldozers and generally making a publicity stunt out of it, and there's still no guarantee that this would stop it.

If, however, the field contains rare species of plant(s) or wildlife you may be able to stop development, or at least minimise the disruption. You would need to get the land to be declared a SSSI (Site of special scientific interest).

[samhuzz]

i work for a local authority planning department and can advise you that the Land Registry would not have told you about any future developments in the area. your local authority search would have picked these up, but only if you requested it at the time. otherwise they would have just picked up planning applications relating to the property itself. you have a right to make objections to the planning application if it has not been decided yet. if it hasn't been decided, i would get on to your ward councillor about the application as usually they have the power to influence decisions on planning applications. if it has been decided, i'm afraid that there is nothing you can do, the decision has been made and that is final, unless it was an outline permission, which means that further details (reserved matters) need to be submitted to the local authority, which you as a neighbour to the site will be notified on. thats if the council is as good as ours! if you need any more info, let me know.