land purchase probs ahead...

[beryllium]

Hello ABs, our neighbour has approached us and 9 other houses to buy the strip of land running at the bottom of our gardens. Reason being parking problems in the road and all wanting access to either build a garage or small driveway or just back garden access, which at the moment is not allowed.

Now for the politics. A farmer that owned the land behind our houses sold to a developement company and they built their houses, they also wanted 1/2 our gardens which was refused. Then the building company refused us access to our gardens from the back. They then sold to another company, which then sold to another company. The registered owners are still the old old company and not in the new companys name. ie; Galliford Sears Homes LTD were taken over by Prowting who were then taken over by Westbury and Westbury. And now Persimmon homes Ltd have taken over Westbury and Westbury but the Proprietorship Register still says that Galliford Sears owns the land. Is that legal?

We are supposed to deal with Persimmon Homes, who wont give us a price on the strip of land until we have given them our proposed plans on the driveways.

Why would they need to see the plans first before giving us a price? is this normal procedure?

And obviously the local council has to be approached first for planning permision.

Persimmon have said they will only deal with one house owner and not all 10, and they want some sort of covenants placed in the contracts but we have no idea what. The council have said we can build a garage if it's more than 20mtrs from the highway and since the strip of land is for visual ammenity, it must be kept as such.

Does anybody have any advice.

B. xx

[themas]

Is the neighbour you refer to at the start of your post Persimmon? If not, I am not clear what the position is.

Assuming it is Persimmon and they are suggesting you buy land from them, it is odd that they won't quote a price.

If the situation is different and it is you and your neighbours who have approached Persimmon I can see their reluctance to give a price before knowing what the use of the land would be. If they in effect have a ransom strip (i.e. you can't do what you want to do without buying land from them) then their price is going to be related to the market value of the land after you have done whatever you intend to do with it. Traditionally, I believe the owner of a ransom strip expects to get about 25% of the development value of the land released for use by him selling the strip. In your case, this would probably be based on increase in value of your houses with the garages or accesses which you couldn't otherwise get.

It could be worth you and your neighbours using the services of an experienced agent to negotiate with Persimmon. You have to expect to incur some costs for this, and drawing up plans and getting planning permission.

[beryllium]

themus, thank you hugely for the information.

As I understand it, my neighbour has approached Persimmon homes to buy the strip because they are not looking after it, and then she approached us with things to sign before i had had a chance to find out any more information, so i said no until i had asked on here funnily enough.

Once again Thank You, much appreciated....

B. xx