My neighbors garden is completely overgrown and unused. My wife’s a very keen gardener so we were thinking today about offering/asking to buy the bottom bit of theirs. It’s surrounded buy other gardens so no access therefore couldn’t be built on. We really just want it for a veg patch.

Anyone done this? Any susscess/horror stories welcome.

I have some experience with this but one particular part went a little “sideways” and has ended up in spat with the neighbours. Anyway, first up is to ask if they are actually willing to sell you the land. Assuming that that is the case then they will need to get in touch with their mortgage company for permission, you’ll likely need to do the same but it should be less of an issue for you as your home value would rise. If there’s no mortgage then that’s less of a problem. They will then get a valuation done to agree a price and then it’s off to the solicitors for both of you to arrange everything. You would be expected to pay not only the valuation of the land but all of their expenses too.

Oh and try to stay on the best terms you can until everything is sorted. These things have a habit of getting out of control if there is a slight disagreement.

We did this years ago on a previous house. All done through a lawyer and no issues. But as above we paid all costs.

We tried at our current house but neighbours wanted more than we were prepared to pay.

PS Depending where you are expect their valuation and the cost to be in thousands not hundreds

On the selling side, yes.
I have a corner plot, pretty large, roughly 30 metres long, 30 wide at the end – gets wider the further you go.
Anyway, the house at the back has a tiny yard, maybe 4 metres deep. He asked if I would sell him a plot. I said OK, 5 metres by 10 metres, that would double the size of his garden.
I was thinking £10k. He had someone come round to value it, then offered me £1k for 10 metres by 20 metres.
The reasoning was it was not big enough to build on, and it was only grass, so I wouldnt lose anything by selling it. I told him it would add £10k easily to his house price (he couldnt sell his house as the garden was tiny)., and no, I wouldnt acept less than £10k. We didnt talk for a year.
He still couldnt sell his house, so a year later, the Estate Agent came round asking if I’d sell the land, yes, at £15k. They wouldnt take that seriously,and offered £3k, so I then said £20k, as they were getting me wound up.
I didnt sell.

^^^ ha. That made me chuckle. I wouldn’t want to fall out with them.

Our gardens already quite big by today’s standards. Buying the bottom of theirs would make ours L shaped.

Was hoping to get it all done and dusted for couple of grand including fees. I’m going to let my wife float the idea with them as she’s the diplomatic one!

An alternative, cheaper approach might be a licence. Like renting but without the legal rigmarole. I’d you just want it as a veg garden and it’s too much for the owner to manage a small licence fee of say £50 a year would work for both of you without having to annex Poland.

Was hoping to get it all done and dusted for couple of grand including fees.

Ask your self this – whats in it for them ?

I would adopt the alan L approach if i was the land owner as well.

Equally for the purposes you suggest i would then offer up the stoner approach.

I certainly wouldnt be up for selling my garden for pittance – as the saying goes – buy land they dont make it anymore ….

A few years ago we sold a sliver of land from our front garden. About 15 feet long and 2 feet wide at its widest tapering to nothing. It enabled the neighbour to lay a driveway as they had no off street parking otherwise.

He paid £2,000 and our legal fees.

It’s added way more than that to his house value.

It was sraightforward. A letter or two to the building society and the solicitors did the rest.

An alternative, cheaper approach might be a licence. Like renting but without the legal rigmarole. I’d you just want it as a veg garden and it’s too much for the owner to manage a small licence fee of say £50 a year would work for both of you without having to annex Poland.

I was wondering this. If a neighbour wanted use of my bomb-site front garden purely for the love of gardening, I’d probably be prepared to pay them to do it.

Offer to buy the whole lot and rent the house back to them. Sell it as one of those equity release schemes…

Are there no allotments near you?

Unless you’re looking to increase the value of your own house (which I doubt an L Shaped garden would do really) then don’t mention renting or buying it at all. Just ask if they’d mind you growing a few veg in their garden. If they’re up for that they may at some point be up for a sale.

Putting it the other way round though – if you asked to buy it and they refused or asked for too much then renting or borrowing are off the agenda.

Some food for thought above thanks.

I came to the figure of a few grand from another forum where someone had done a similar thing.

I agree that a soft approach is probably the best one and renting is probably the best way to start.

There probably isn’t much in it for them however they never use their garden. We have never seen them in the garden in the two years we’ve been here.

I don’t believe it would add much value to our house if any. It seems a lot of buyers these days are put off buy large gardens.

We could get a allotment of coarse which was our first thought but having something on site would be ideal.

can you not just ask if you can use it firstly, and save a fortune?

I think I’ll try the ask of use first. See what they say.

Shame cougar doesn’t live next door.

My Grandfather did this for decades, he used his neighbours garden as an allotment, had his own gate and paid in Veg. Worked especially well as his neighbour was a butcher, everyones a winner.

Alans story highlights a real issue – what the land is valued at as a separate entity with no external access and no building potential is very different to what it can add in value to the property it becomes part of.

A fair way to reason it is what would their house be valued at with an without the land and would it impact the saleability of their land. If it would then they would want to be compensated for this on top of the value decrease. If their garden is so large that it wouldnt have any real loss of selling potential then fine.

also worth having your house valued with and without the land for your sake at it will show you the real value so you know what you should be forking out close to and also when someone is asking too much for it to be worth it.

It is was a plot of land in the middle of an allotment say then yes, value it as a simple bit of land to grow veg on.

If it all falls away just be nice and civil, even if things hint at getting nasty. If you let things fully go bad then there is no chance in future and it may make other things difficult. Losing a very poorly kept part of garden may even improve the saleability of their house as a lot of people might see it and be put off and a lot of people these days dont want huge gardens with lots of upkeep.

PS we kind of do this rent thing with sheep. We own some land, we rent other stuff. It’s only small parcels of land (up to 3 acres) so we pay in meat.

Be very prepared for them not being interested. If they don’t tend or use the garden it doesn’t mean it’s not important to them – it’s part of the peace privacy of their home. The prospect of having someone wandering about in it even if they would be paying for the privilege or have bought the land just might not be very appealing.

Thinking about this,

If I were the one ‘renting’ I’d want to make sure that there’s no sort of law which grants them more rights over time because of usage. I wouldn’t want to be in a position where by letting someone use my garden for ten years I’d effectively given it to them permanently.

Doesn’t happen if by licence.

Adverse possession (Google it) has very limited application and simply documenting a relationship reasonably regularly even if for 0 rent is enough to extinguish any risk of losing possession

Adverse possession needs 12 years unchallenged use. I’ve acquired an extra 6″ of garden by accidentally fencing it 6″ too far to one side (well a builder did 18 years ago). Neighbour first complained last month about it, he only noticed as he’s now selling it. 6 years too late now, he’s lost that 6″ …

The TDs, my grandad also did this…his garden ended up being huge with the ends of three neighbors gardens. 3/4s of it was all fruit and veg mainly which he mainly grew to enter competitions. I’m not sure how he did it as he never owned the house; it was housing association. He passed away 3 years ago at 96. Perhaps all that veg helped.

Thanks for all the comments, it’s of coarse going to come down to how receptive the neighbors are. We’re both very reasonable people and wouldn’t ever try to claim the land through use. I think if we manage to get the go ahead from them I’ll get a agreement written up from a solicitor to protect us both. A friend’s just told a little tale of caution where the previous owners of his house did this with his neighbor. After clearing the land the neighbors changed their mind!

I’ll update once we’ve plucked up the courage to have “the chat”

We have the bottom of nextdoor’s garden as the previous owner of our house bought it. 4m x 5m and it cost the £10k. Our garden is now L shaped and it works very well as the sticky out bit of the L is very secluded.

I’ve seen the same done. Two long gardens next to each other (near enough 80m long by 15/18m wide). Ends up with two reasonable length gardens (25m ish of lawn flowers and stuff) with one having access to a massive fruit and veg garden across the bottom of both. No access other than across the back garden, surrounded by neighbours fences.

AFAIK the couple who sold the land are now actively involved in the care/growing of the crop. Get “paid” in fruit and veg.

Yup did this last year bought the bottom half of a long narrow garden so ours is now L shaped.
Had a couple of agents round and gave us very different valuations, but at the end of the day its how much its worth to you and them and your house which depends on the size of house ie family home or not.

They started at 16k i started at 9k we agreed on 12k so we were both happy.

We both paid our own legal costs, but I did the fencing. We now have a nice veg area and firepit with fruit trees and a large Oak tree that I had been itching to have made safer anyway as they weren’t going to do it.

I am now also thinking about a treehouse………. 😉

Our “chat” started one day by me saying casually, you don’t seem to use the bottom of your garden……. We could do with more space.
only trouble has been they used the cash to build a summerhouse thing thats way too large for the garden in our opinion…….. But hey we have planted screening so we cant see it 🙂