Houses sold with a statement of truth and indemnity

I’m just window shopping on Rightmove and found this, obviously full legal scrutiny would follow if I were interested.

The estate agent states:

“AGENTS NOTE
The garden will be sold with a statement of truth and indemnity policy as it has been incorrectly registered. The title offered is a posessionery title and the marketing price has been adjusted to take this into account.”

Any real world experiences of buying / living in / selling a house with the above?

Ta

We bought our house a couple of years ago. A small part at the bottom of the garden didn’t match the land registry boundary plan. We got a letter from the previous owners stating they had used that part of the garden for 8 years without paying any rent and with no dispute.

In theory now we can apply for vacant possession as 10 years has passed. We may not bother though as the few square metres in our case is neither here nor there.

If the whole garden on your property is in question that’s a different matter. You can download the land registry plan for a small fee and this should give more info. But I’m guessing the estate agent will have a copy if they are aware of it.

Depending on how much of the property is in dispute, getting finance might be tricky

Our house had an incorrect boundary on the plan due to new stock fencing replacing old. Technically we have some of the adjacent land in our garden, it was pointed out by our solicitor, but viewed in context it was no real concern and we went ahead.

But if there was a reasonable chance that a neighbour might make a claim, then you might take a different position. But then I think they would need to produce land registry plans in their favour, which putting two and two together, it doesn’t sound like they exist?

I’m pretty sure we could view online for free, although we are in Scotland

Edit I just remembered an old colleague bought a house with large garden, however part of it was essentially in a neighbouring ‘garden’. There must have been some form of gentleman’s agreement in the past between neighbours. The house was sold following the death of the elderly occupant, my colleague bought it but the section of garden in question went back to the neighbours family.

Sold a house in Scotland last year. Access to end of driveway was across a another perpendicular drive that went to Coastguard, Firestation and 4 other properties. 12 ft wide approx.  House is 50 years old, so had been like that for that time.  Buyers solicitor questioned it (same solicitor that we used 12 years ago to purchase it & didnt question it then – ****). We ended up signing an affidavit & taking out an indemnity policy for £100 approx (which I insisted buyer paid for).

Edit I just remembered an old colleague bought a house with large garden, however part of it was essentially in a neighbouring ‘garden’.

When I was very young the house we lived in had a grumpy arsehole neighbour who was convinced our garden fence was in the wrong place and that a 4ft strip of our garden was actually his (it would turn out he was correct that it was in the wrong place, but actually in his favour rather than ours and a strip of his garden was actually ours)

If we planted anything in the disputed strip he’d wait til we were out and dig it all up again

When we moved out he had a go at the removal company because their van was casting a shadow on his property.

In theory now we can apply for vacant possession as 10 years has passed. We may not bother though as the few square metres in our case is neither here nor there.

Really really really recommend that you do this now before it becomes a headache when you sell, or if the law changes unexpectedly.

Suffered going through this with a tiny plot of unregistered land in a larger area last year.

Boundary disputes are an area of total madness,people have had to sell the house to pay legal bills.

Any real world experiences of buying / living in / selling a house with the above?

Selling, right now. My mum passed away and I’m selling her house. It turns out, the deeds are nowhere to be found and it’s not registered with the Land Registry. My best guess is that it was bought before computerised records were a thing and never mortgaged. I got to a point of having my mum’s solicitor going into their basement with a torch rummaging through box files.

I’ve had to do exactly this, sign a Statement Of Truth to say yes my mum did live here for 45 years, and take out an indemnity in case something goes tits up. So coming from the other side, it’s all above board and nothing to worry about. YMMV of course.

Isn’t it one condition of an indemnity policy for things like boundaries that you can’t tell anyone it exists? I think the logic is that if people know it exists there’s more likely to be a challenge on whatever it covers

…Or am I thinking of something else properly sale related.

You’re thinking of Fight Club.

The seller can apply to the land registry to have the boundary moved. I gather this process takes about 3 months so often not something people want to do before selling as it delays everything. These policies are to cover that.

When we bought our house with this issue, we insisted 1) indemnity policy, 2) the owners would apply for the land to be registered and 3) they would assist in any ongoing application queries.

“AGENTS NOTE
The garden will be sold with a statement of truth and indemnity policy as it has been incorrectly registered. The title offered is a posessionery title and the marketing price has been adjusted to take this into account.”

It’s cheaper because nobody is sure who owns the garden. The worse case is that the property could be worth less than you pay and less desirable for selling on without a garden, aka you’re stuck with it.

Your mortgage company won’t give you a mortgage if they can’t guarantee a minimum price in the event of repossession; the indemnity policy backs you so that you can get a mortgage and probably will be transferable in the event that you sell

You now need to see the indemnity policy: How long has the indemnity policy been in existence? How many vendors has it been through? How does it help you beyond getting a mortgage? Will advertising the policy nullify it? etc. and get legal advice.

The other biggie is how can this be put permanently right and how much will that cost?

@Cougar2 You can actually get the house registered with the Land Registry using a statement of truth. I had to do this with four properties owned by a housing trust that I am on the board of.

That would have been useful information several months ago. I should’ve asked on here at the time really, but my head was a mess.

Similar issues with FiL’s house. Land registration is a mess. He bought a small strip off neighbouring farm, we have lots of correspondence about this but no deed to that strip which was never mortgaged and deeds likely therefore never got put together. No dispute but the boundary fence has moved and collapsed (land slippage) so it’s really not that obvious where it should be. We’re hopefully getting it properly registered prior to sale.

The deeds to our own house don’t quite match the reality either but no-one cares.

We have a public footpath running along our driveway and which continues onto a neighbouring field.  Land registry documents suggest the farmer has right of access to the field with his kit but the vendor, who I would categorise as “genuinely honest” was of the belief that the right of access had been removed when the farm changed hands many years ago and it had never been tested in the 15 years of the vendor ownership.  Besides there is a huge access point directly onto the road 100 yards away.  Our solicitor, who was very thorough in her enquiries in everything else (and encouraged us to use an indemnity to cover an aspect of our sale), was happy to accept a Statement of Truth from the vendor (without an indemnity).  She hasn’t even suggested we get the title amended with the Land Registry as we will simply add our own Statement, and if it comes down to indemnification a policy costs less than making the change.  I’m relaxed about it.