Boundaries · Report on Title scenario
A piece of land that nobody has ever registered. Where the official plan stops short of what is being occupied, the excluded strip usually sits outside the legal title altogether — and a claim to it rests on possession rather than on paperwork. The useful part is that your period of possession can be added to the seller's.
From the e-ROT archive
This scenario is drawn from Report on Title material dealing with this specific circumstance.
Most land in England and Wales is registered, and a strip that appears on no title is land nobody has brought onto the register. That is a different and generally more hopeful position than land registered to a third party.
It still means you do not own it on completion. What it means is that there may be nobody actively asserting a competing claim, and that a possession-based application has a clearer run.
If land you believed you had bought is not on your plan, what was reported to you about the title during the purchase is where the question starts.
Find out what should have been explained → WhenIBought.comPossession by successive owners can be added together, so the seller's years count towards the period if the possession passed to you with the property. That is what makes the seller's statement of truth valuable, and why it should be obtained on completion rather than chased later.
Get it even if you do not intend to apply straight away. Memories fade, sellers move abroad, and a statement is far easier to obtain from somebody standing at a completion than from somebody you have not spoken to in six years.
Ask what evidence exists of the occupation besides the statement — fencing, maintenance, photographs, anything with a date on it.
It is an application to the Land Registry, and the Lexsure wording below is honest that it is technically possible to do it yourself and advisable not to. Fees are payable to the registry and to whoever prepares it.
It is worth doing. An application that succeeds converts an unregistered strip into registered land in your name, which removes the question permanently and adds value you can actually sell.
Where you are buying, the practical question is who does it and when. A seller who has already been through the process has given you a title; a seller who has not has given you a project.
From the e-ROT archive
Report on Title paragraph
Should you wish to pursue a claim for adverse possession in respect of the excluded land, you will be required to demonstrate 12 years of continuous possession. We understand that the seller has occupied this area for a number of years and has agreed to provide a Statement of Truth in support of their period of possession. …
Master precedent wording. This is current Lexsure Report on Title material, shown here in extract and reproduced exactly, including the period it states for this unregistered land. Different periods and procedures apply to registered land, and this page states none of its own.
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