There’s a street near me where the house numbers start 5, 7, 9 etc. Where 1 and 3 should be there’s a plot of land, much overgrown. Front is a big metal security fence, with a gate protected by three big padlocks, which looks well maintained. I’ve found a map from the 1930s which showed buildings on the site and there are two dropped kerbs so it’s clear there used to be something there. There are signs of concrete foundations and some pipework jutting out of the ground – looks like old water or gas supply.
I can’t find any mention of the address online. There is no house price history nor record of it changing hands. It’s not listed on any land purchase websites I’ve searched. There are no planning permissions associated with it as far as I can search back. It doesn’t appear in the land registry presumably as there’s no habitable property there.
There are no identifying signs on the fence. I’ve never heard rumours of any “murder house” associated with the address. There are no environmental alerts in the area that might indicate poisoned ground and the pipework isn’t the kind that would be venting some underground contamination. I’ve emailed the council to ask about it and had no response. I was thinking about knocking on the door to number 5 and asking if they know anything about it – but haven’t done this yet.
It’s an interesting anomaly and I’m interested in finding out what’s going on with it. I might be interested in purchasing it even if I couldn’t get planning permission to build anything there.
Is there any obvious way to work out who owns this plot that I’ve not thought of?
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Here’s the plot in question: https://i.imgur.com/U1hQPId.png
Quite a sizable plot. It doesn’t appear to have any access from any of the surrounding back gardens.
You can do this on the land registry, there’s map feature but you may need to pay
https://search-property-information.service.gov.uk/
It’ll show any plot of land, I’ve used it to find out which farmer owns a field and stuff
I would contact the land registry.
I want to know who owns the land a hill fort in Cheshire is on so I can ask to visit it. I am considering speaking to the land registry.
Land can be a problem. My in-laws had a strip of land between them and the neighbour that was owned at one time by the water company. We got them out to look, they thought they owned it so agreed to fence the garden (£3k ‘s worth!)
The neighbour was very old, and a bit gaga, so she didn’t care but then her son popped up and claimed his Dad (now dead) had bought the land in the 50’s. He had deeds but nothing had ever been registered with the Land Registry.
We had a similar case on the Isle of Wight where we bought a piece of a field to extend our garden. The old guy’s parents had bought the house and field as a “holiday home” in the 1930’s. It took him a year to find the deeds.
In both cases, when the property was sold in was registered properly with the LR. My guess would be that the land hasn’t changed hands for years.
It’s strange isn’t it. Near me there’s a massive boarded up plot of land, but if you look through you can see the shell of a huge Victorian villa. Clearly it’s been like that for 50 years or more as trees have grown within the building.
But I live in one of the most expensive areas of the country and there’s clearly room for about 5-10 houses. I guess some things just fall through the net, presumably when people die and the beneficiaries can’t be traced.
Stick a for sale sign on it with your number as the contact. The owner will soon be in touch….
Sounds like you’ve found it but I just wanted to comment on one thing.
> It doesn’t appear in the land registry presumably as there’s no habitable property there.
That’s not a reason for it not to be on the registry. There Land Registry absolutely includes details of undeveloped land – the clue’s in the name; it’s the Land Registry not the Building Registry.
The most likely explanation for a piece of land not appearing on the registry is that it hasn’t been sold or otherwise been the subject of an event that triggers compulsory registration since the area it’s in was subject to that law.
England and Wales has only been fully covered by compulsory registration since 1990 and as of a couple of years ago the Land Registry estimated that about 14% of land remained unregistered.
Land Registry
British newspaper archives. See if there are any stories relating to the plot.
Somtimes if there has been recent planning permission applied for or granted on the property, council website records can show you want to say 3 years worth but not sure.
The Council might have older planning records than what’s available on their website, for applications which haven’t been digitised yet. Quite often Councils only digitise apps from the last 20-30 years, with older stuff saved in archive, either paper records or microfiche.
Have you looked at older aerial imagery to get a better sense of the more recent history of the plot? Google Earth (the desktop version) has a few snapshots of most places to the mid-90s, and then more sporadic coverage as far back as the 1940s.
You could also have a look for older Street View imagery, in case any relevant has changed in the last 15 years.