[Shinding]

Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts/info about whose responsibility it is, when buying a smallholding, for checking the land size stated is actually correct.

Seems like we've been short changed for nearly 2 acres - very stupid of us I now know but we've never had land before and obviously we have the benefit of hindsight should we ever purchase land again!!

[farmershort]

It's false advertising if nothing else, and both the sellers and the agent, and the seller solicitors all have duties around this stuff.

Speak to your conveyancing solicitor and see if they have a team that deal with disputes. It might cost you a grand to get it investigated, but it will likely come down to a) a refund of the difference in value between what you bought, and what you thought you were buying, and b) compensation based on the duty of care neglected by one of all of those parties.

HTH

[stufe35]

You are not the only person to fall foul of this.  I have a farmer friend who does a bit of contracting to his neighbouring farmers eg ploughing/ combining.  Payment is by the acre.  For years he has done fields for them being told they are 20 acres (for example)  now with the benefit of google earth and GPS on tractors he is discovering fields he has been doing for years and being paid for as though they were 20 acres are nearer 22 !

[Shinding]

That's how we found the discrepancy; using Google Earth when we were compiling a planning app. Such a simple way to find out but never thought to check it.

Would it not be the duty of our, the buyer's, solicitors to protect us by checking this?

[farmershort]

That's how we found the discrepancy; using Google Earth when we were compiling a planning app. Such a simple way to find out but never thought to check it.

Would it not be the duty of our, the buyer's, solicitors to protect us by checking this?

I'd say it was on them. False advertising if nothing else. But you'll need a solicitor to argue in the correct legaleese.

[bj_cardiff]

I think you'll find that the agents will have a disclaimer somewhere saying that they haven't checked the property/lamd size, or that its estimated. I suspect that when you buy the property your responsible for surveying it, as when you buy a house. I also wonder if the arial mapping tools take the landscape into account when mapping. 10 acres of flat land might show as 10 acres but 10 acres of steep land might only show as 8 when viewed from above?

[chrismahon]

When we sold our house with land the Estate agent was insistent that they would only market it when they had surveyed the exact size of the plot. This, we were told, was because they would be liable if there was any error.

[size=78%]We checked our land here using Geoportail.fr. Strangely the arial view said the land was slightly larger than the official plot figures and taking into account the actual would be even larger?[/size]


That aside I would first refer back to your own solicitor and get their opinion. You should be due a refund but in reality the legal costs per suing it may exceed the value?


You would also certainly need an independent survey to support your claim that you have been sold less than you thought you were buying.

[farmershort]

I think it all boils down to whether you're willing to splash £1k or £2k on a solicitor to find out. disclaimers can't always be backed up in court.... but you can't do that sort of fighting on your own.

[bj_cardiff]

I think it all boils down to whether you're willing to splash £1k or £2k on a solicitor to find out. disclaimers can't always be backed up in court.... but you can't do that sort of fighting on your own.

I suspect it would be the same as with housebuying. If you choose not to have a survey you have no comeback if you move in and later find that you have subsidance? Also you have no proof that the sellers were aware they were misrepresenting if they never had the land surveyed either.

[cloddopper]

Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts/info about whose responsibility it is, when buying a smallholding, for checking the land size stated is actually correct.

Seems like we've been short changed for nearly 2 acres - very stupid of us I now know but we've never had land before and obviously we have the benefit of hindsight should we ever purchase land again!!

 Last time I purchased some land it was checked & certified  by a surveyor doing physical measurements & them saying in their report  1.6 3 hectares approximately.  What was not indicated ( usually by small diagonal  lines cross the boundary lines )on the plan was who had responsibility for which boundary That caused a lot of problems eventually due to Leylandi roots creeping 25 mtrs  .

 If there are no marks on the deeds it is usually considered a shared boundary .... this causes no end of problems on modern housing estates when fences blow down or need renewing etc .

 The boundaries were indicated too , but not agreed upon . again this caused problems for as far as I was concerned the trees had been illegally planted on my land many years previously . They had 12 inch diameter trunks so were about 15 years old & as they were destroying my Tarmac  courtyard & parking area I was going to have them cut  down .
 Had it all been  throughly  checked & certified it would have saved me a lot of hassle ..
For I was trying to sell my home & the trees were a big NO NO to prospective buyers or a possible advantage to some who tried / hoped to knock £ 20 K off the house price .
(We  got full sale price on the third viewing in the end ) .
The problem kind of solved itself , the woman tenant in the council house ( an alcoholic )   died of cirrhosis of her liver six  months or so  before  we moved here to Wales ....  the trees disappeared  not long after her demise , before a new tenant arrived  .

I suggest you write a letter about your concerns to your solicitor or the one concerned with your purchase & ask for their advice & for goodness sake keep several copies of all the correspondence  for ever & a day .

 Another thing  ... make sure you are using the title deeds you got with the sale of the land , check they are the same as the plot registered sold to you that the land the details will be helfd inn your land registry office.

 Funny but also sad  story .

 Mr W . ,a  nutter new to the area from London went berserk one Saturday morning  ranting & screaming when I was out shooting  with half a dozen or so local farmers .

 It was our groups written down rules & safe practice to carry a loaded but broken gun in the field . Only closing it making it armed ready to fire once the safety catch was taken off  when  a quarry came into killing range   & even then only then should we shoot when a shot could be taken in complete safety .

If anyone was going to run / jog  the gun had to be emptied , shown clear to the person either side of the runner before they were allowed to  run / jog move fast , cross a ditch /climb an obstacle or pass through a hedge etc. etc. to a new position .

Mr W. was shouting , swearing & screeching "  I'm calling the police , I've called the police , You are doing armed trespass . I've got photos etc etc . You F'in lot are going to jail " .

He even tried to physically insert himself at the end of the barrels of a couple of guys with loaded but broken shot guns . 
Knowing how to stop anyone getting killed /maimed in such a situation we protected each other to keep him away whilst we unloaded , showed each other the guns were clear & moved by trucks  to our nest venue .

 David the former Farmer who owned the land we were on said , " Leave it quiet lads,  it will sort itself out  very shortly " .

 None of us rely understood what was meant , police came to visit me & all others concerned , took statements told us our licences could be in jeopardy .

 Old David Wilson the long retired farmer who was 83 if a day  was the last to be interviewed .
He dropped a bombshell saying , " When I sold that Twa* the old place I didn't sell him the plot as shown on the survey maps . It's only 150 x 60 yards not 300 x 600 like the 1921 TF Ordnance survey maps show.  If you check his deeds you see he was trespassing & giving behaving likely to cause a disturbance of the peace  . Plus he was endangering us as we tried to get the guns safe & move away from him . . can you sort him out please .

 Mr W got arrested a few months later & sent down for many  months after a big search of his property for drugs &  stolen property .  Something to do with him beating the crap out his wife & kids whilst he was high .
 
Not  long after W. de[parted as a guest of her majesty , the property came up for sale David purchased it  for a lot less than he had originally sold it for .  He had it decorated & let to tenants but this time the deeds showed an even smaller plot ...... with option to rent a decent sized fully fenced paddock to the rear of the property &  no right of way to the tenant for access to the paddock unless they were renting it  . .

[landroverroy]

Just a couple of things come to mind:
  1. It doesn't cost £1K - £2K just to ask a solicitor's opinion. You don't even have to consult the one that conveyed your purchase. Whether you act on it or not it then up to you. But you would at least (hopefully) then have a qualified view of the situation, as opposed to choosing from a number of educated guesses.
  2. How do you know that google earth is correct?

[pharnorth]

Just a couple of things come to mind:
  1. It doesn't cost £1K - £2K just to ask a solicitor's opinion. You don't even have to consult the one that conveyed your purchase. Whether you act on it or not it then up to you. But you would at least (hopefully) then have a qualified view of the situation, as opposed to choosing from a number of educated guesses.
  2. How do you know that google earth is correct?

Ha ha. Love it. Come on everyone knows that Google is the font of all wisdom.

[Shinding]

Google is indeed the font of all wisdom pharnorth:) I used another site to measure the land and was conservative when drawing the boundary around our land - I'm assuming using the line I've drawn to measure the land is a relatively simple process on google earth and it can't be out almost 2 acres. You've made a good point about steep land bj-cardiff.

[Buttermilk]

The water board used google earth to work out that we were three times the amount of land that we actually had.  After apeal and a recount we now only have to pay water rates on double the actual acreage.  Our problem is the total area is not stated on the transfer paperwork only the area of grassland and not the area the house is stood on.

[bazzais]

You will find that alot of these area mappers dont take into account grandients and bumps, hedges and gates, scrub and crap

If you had a hedge 5 foot wide and about 10000 foot round the field thats and acre gone.

1.5 M and 3000m

It dont take long to lose the measurements if your messuring from the outside of the fence instead of the inside