abandoned houses

[cadetchris]

there is a lovely cottage in my village, that has been abandoned for many year, so many so, that the royal mail dosent have the foggiest that it exists.
anyway, getting to the point, i have tried to locate the owner but none of the neighbours have any idea. i would very much like this house, but how does one go about getting it? the owner could well be dead by now, which might mean no legal owner at all.
would i go to the council? but i am slightly weary of this, as they might have it. save for claiming squatters rights i am not sure what to do or who to approach.
any ideas?

[Timbohan]

Your local council should have an empty property officer who should be able to help. They still need to find the owner though.


Regards,

Tim

[ASL642]

You could contact the Land Registry giving full details of the property. They should have details of who it is registered to.

[d_harris]

Speak to the Land Registry.

Squatters rights no longer exists as its contrary to European Law. (well, according to my ex who was a property paralegal)

[Judge]

Depending on when it was last sold, it may not be on the Land Registry's records.

[ASL642]

Agreed, but it's somewhere to start.

[bmcecosse]

Squatters rights seem to exist for Eastern rogues - who move into folks houses while they have just popped down the shops for a newspaper.......... And the cops won't do anything about it - saying 'it's a Civil matter' - and anyone complaining is charged with racial abuse........ I think you would need to 'take possession' - and see if anyone complains ! Then register the house/land as yours at the Land Registry. Need to spend a bit on Solicitor's fees. I think after 20 years if no-one has challenged - it's yours!

[MarkyB]

A cunning plan indeed!
They used to say that possession is nine tenths of the law, might have been superseded now, but it can't hurt very much, can it?
How bad a state is it in?
Have you asked the village elders, not just the near neighbours?
Unless it's been empty for 100 years plus someone will know something, although the post offices web site may make no mention I bet the local post office will know something.

Having said this, I'm not a lawyer, and don't even play one in a TV series, so this information may well be worth what you paid for it .

[moggyminor16]

there is a cd you can get on teh good old flee bay about this you need to get teh post code then in touch with land reg and there is another person who you need to get in touch with
BUT there is also a away if you start to mantain the land ie cut teh grass ect then after a time you can clame it get in tehre before the big fat guts get there before you do mate good luck keep us informed as i have found one in teh same state been like that for 10 years

[rayofleamington]

some of the methods to claim a property require that you have made reasonable efforts to locate the property owner and/or satisfied whichever conditions are required

There had been a rule regarding lapsed tennancies whereby if the owner didn't charge rent for >7 years then you could claim possession. The exact rules could be used in many different cases but I'm not sure if they've been removed in recent times. This certainly worked 10 years ago as there were a couple of famous cases including a 'tramp'* who lived in a shed for decades within a small wood in some posh london estate. When some fatcat tried to evict him, the guy in the shed ended up with not only the shed, but some of the surrounding woodland which he had been maintaining - worth a monumental sum of money.

As for squatters rights, a friend of mine and her mates tried this in an abandoned property (ex pub). Despite having 100% documented proof that they had not made forced entry and that the building was being put to good use instead of being left abandoned by the previous tennant (for many years), the judge decided to see the squatters evidence as conjecture and awarded the building back to the lease holder.
These kind of judgements are at the discretion of a judge**... therefore can go either way. In some cases, if the property owner is very dodgy, then dodgy means will be used to remove squatters to avoids playing roulette with the legal system. so again it helps to know who actually owns the place ;-)

* or whichever term should be used
** or somebody like a judge - I'm no laywer!