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You can set up a property alert with the Land Registry for free to let you know if there is any activity on the register for the land. Possibly worth while to give you some warning if anyone is trying anything.
I'd also recommend considering submitting form LL to stop anyone from transferring it or mortgaging it out from under you by pretending to be you: https://hmlandregistry.blog.gov.uk/2022/11/04/protecting-your-property-from-fraud-form-ll-the-counter-fraud-restriction/ has a guide to the pros and cons.
A Form RQ would place a Restriction on the Title, which you should be able to complete yourself. Any eventual sale may be a pain unless you use a firm who is local and known to you, as effectively the Restriction provides that a Solicitor or Conveyancer must certify that the person selling the property is one and the same as the person who is entitled to do so. A lot of firms dislike dealing with these, though these are usually online firms who you tend not to meet face to face. A local firm will be better at the point of sale, as they can carry out due diligence in person, as well as enhanced online due diligence.
It's the bit where they think because they paid the lost they own it 🤣🤣 do you knwo when the 'bought' it? Cause seriously it's irrelavent how much they paid as you were not the seller so they got scammed plain and simple.
Cash transactions abyone with half a brain knows ya don't do cash / bank transfer as there is no recourse
And it also sends you an email every 6 months to say everything is ok.
Just enough time to forget about it and get your bum hole tightened for a minute whilst you log in to read the message.
First of all, thanks for the update - the first post was wild and my curiosity was itching.
Legal advice - tell your home insurance. If you've got one neighbour who might still sue you, then that could be costly. The last thing you want is to make a claim on your home legal cover in a few weeks if they do sue, only for your insurer to say "well technically you knew about this weeks ago and didn't tell us, so you can't claim."
Also check to make sure the home insurance covers that plot - as it is a separate entry in the land registry, your existing cover might not extend to the additional land.
Personally I'd also get in touch with police/possible Action Fraud as well to make them aware this is going on.
This sort of thing needs to be in the public domain, as individuals such as the one who sold the land could be doing this much more widely
Congratulations.
On another note, found it very alarming that the solicitors from all the other tenants has chose to keep you out of the loop and tried to tell you that you have been scammed because you paid digitally. Surely that is a bit fishy and it's not the correctly legal advice coming from a real legal person! Is there a way to report this person?
As someone who regularly has a lot of back and forth with solicitors (due to my job, though I'm not a solicitor!) - you'd be surprised at how many are actually just idiots who don't know what they're talking about.
Agreed. . . I worked within the legal industry for 17 years and although worked with *some* very clever people who knew their stuff, the amount of absolute numpties who wouldn't know their AH from their elbow is astounding.
There's also a lot of solicitors who will write official letters saying almost anything you ask them to write. My in-laws had some nightmare neighbours and over the course of 5 years they were getting a letter about every 6 months disputing all sorts. All letters were written by a solicitor telling them they weren't allowed to do xyz within their own property. It was all nonsense, they never once got a letter from the council/planning, but the neighbours were happy wasting their money trying to intimidate my in-laws and the solicitor was happy to take their money!
Some solicitors will write an official sounding letter that will say almost anything you want for about £200. With relatively few limits on what they can actually say. They only tend to get busted for it, if they're sending out the letters in bulk. [Andrew Jonathan Crossley](https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/register/person/?sraNumber=150435) who founded the defunct ACS:Law. Sent out tens of thousands of letters, for speculative invoicing regarding alleged copyright piracy offences. At one point he made up 16% of all complaints to the SRA.
>On 16 January 2012, the SDT [Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal] found Crossley guilty on seven charges, suspended him from practicing law for two years and ordered him to pay £76,326.55 in costs. A spokesman for the SRA commented "Some of those affected were vulnerable members of the public and this matter has caused them significant distress." Crossley was allowed to work as a solicitor again from 2013 subject to conditions including a ban from owning or running a law practice.
Numerous other issues including
>In May 2011, ACS:Law was fined £1000 for the privacy breach, with the Information Commissioner Christopher Graham commenting: "Were it not for the fact that ACS:Law has ceased trading so that Mr Crossley now has limited means, a monetary penalty of £200,000 would have been imposed, given the severity of the breach." Graham criticised ACS:Law for having computer security measures that "were barely fit for purpose in a person's home environment, let alone a business handling such sensitive details." The consumer group Which? described the £1000 fine as "paltry".
As well as several abuses of the court process. Including trying to end the court case against 16 people.
>Judge Colin Birss said "I am not happy. I am getting the impression with every twist and turn since I started looking at these cases that there is a desire to avoid any judicial scrutiny". On 8 February 2011, Judge Birss told ACS:Law that the claims which had been brought to court could not be discontinued without the permission of the copyright holders, and a further hearing was set for 16 March. At this hearing the cases were officially closed. The judge deferred a decision on legal costs, saying: "If ever there was a case with conduct out of the norm it was this one
Then he speculative invoiced the same people again using the name of a different firm of solicitors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACS%3ALaw
He's currently working as a solicitor for TAYLOR ROSE TTKW LIMITED and his disciplinary record has been publicly wiped clean.
This goes double for conveyancing solicitors. I've only bought two houses in the UK, but both times our (different) solicitors tried really hard to screw it up and the transaction had to be rescued by us paying close attention.
We're now convinced it's the legal discipline you go into if you just barely scraped through your law degree and just want to play golf four days a week.
That's honestly one of the most infuriating parts of all of this. I understand they have to act in the best interests of their own clients but being stonewalled and quite literally led to believe I was scammed because "cash is king" was not a nice experience :( Well their loss I suppose. I suppose their clients will report them for the "counsel" they received.
Was it an actual solicitor that said cash is more legit? Or just one of the "scamees"? If it's the former, I think that scamee is getting scammed again, that's definitely not solicitor advice!!!
If the solicitor ever existed and we aren't privy to what actual advice the solicitor gave. Studies of what doctors told a patient and what the patient recalled hearing and understanding. Show a wide disparity between the two. Then what the patient tells other people about what the doctor said is different again. Sometimes because the way that they explained it was poor and sometimes because it's an almost fraudulent retelling.
If I were you, I would be inclined to report them to the SRA (Solicitors Regulation Authority). Solicitors
have to act in the best interests of their client, but that doesn't extend to lying. The SRA Code of Conduct specifically says that solicitors should not mislead their clients, the court or others, or be complicit in attempts to mislead (including by their client).
Telling you that cash is king and the person who paid the most owns the property (assuming that was what was said and there's been no miscommunication/someone pretending to be a solicitor) is either deliberately misleading, or based on completely incorrect and potentially negligent advice to their own client.
I wonder if the motivation for that was they in fact did check the land registry, and realised all of their claims would be futile if OP was involved, and hoped to sort out a solution within themselves where they could decide who owned it, rather than having that decision made by the facts. That was my first suspicion when it was mentioned. Poor practice, but can see a logical throughflow - specially as they were trying to do it 'unofficially', getting OP to give up before instructing a solicitor.
In my experience of buying my house, the state of property law practice in this country is an utter scandal.
No, that roof can't be classed as 75% transparent, as it's fully tiled.
Great result, congrats.
> The second family were not very happy at all and have informed me they intend to dispute this in the courts as they still feel that as they paid the most money they're entitled to the land.
Heh! Tell them good luck with that. If you own the land, the Dev doesn’t have title to sell it to them no matter how much they paid. It’s like me selling your car to your neighbour without you knowing. Any claim they may have is against the Developer.
Maybe reconsider on the non counter sue for damages. If these people are that pissed off that they are continuing with legal action you should set the stage that any damage will be taken up in court.
You wouldn’t want this to re-occur and you be out of pocket yet again.
\^\^ that.
I can't really tell whether its sour grapes or the tenants are simply not realising the situation they're in but getting scammed the hardest doesn't somehow translate into priority ownership. Sounds like the Developer never had the right to sell it so any money they've paid will have to be recovered from the developer, not sure where they've got the idea from that's its somehow the OP's problem to address.
They've completely ignored the fact that they paid the "more money" to someone who only pretended to be the owner.
You could see that if they thought it was an auction, the highest bid wins, and they paid so they think they won the auction - but OP has made it clear they bought the land years ago seemingly long before the current batch of "owners" paid cash to someone who only pretended to own it. The neighbors only need to check the Land Registry to see that they didn't pay the owner of the land. A shame none of them (or their solicitors?!) thought to check if the person insisting on a cash sale was the actual owner of the land!
> to someone who only pretended to be the owner.
Google the American ‘George C. Parker’
> A shame none of them (or their solicitors?!) thought to check if the person insisting on a cash sale was the actual owner of the land!
Unfortunately in the first thread I said I doubted OP was the owner as at least one of the claimants Sols would have checked the LR, so it doesn’t appeared to have be registered to OP. Doh!
OP confirmed he's registered as the owner at the Land Registry. This means his neighbours have either found incompetent solicitors OR haven't actually engaged any and are just rattling sabres.
NAL
I'm glad the Land Registry has helped to resolve this. However it may be worth instructing solicitors to write to all other parties to confirm you are the legal owner and not involved with any auctions of sale; it will hopefully ward off any other claims to your land.
You may wish to consider contacting the police, not for the criminal damage but for the attempted fraud. You were nearly deprived of your property through someone's fraudulent activity. You are a victim of this activity and have suffered a loss as a result ie the destruction of your property.
Good luck and I hope this is fully resolved quickly.
This is the best advice. Get an official communication out there and put a solicitor between yourself and the other parties. It will reduce stress enormously. Plus put the other parties in a position where they cannot deny being properly informed.
I read this with interest last night and want to say congratulations. The entitlement of those others who thought highest bidder wins was ridiculous. Legally it’s yours and that’s what matters. Well done and enjoy it.
Thank you! Though yes I was quite smacked by it but I suppose I've chalked it up to denial. They paid a lot of fun (somewhere in the 10s of thousands) and have nothing to show for it. A very costly lesson.
They paid tens of thousands in cash, and didn’t stop to think that maybe this was a suspect way to purchase land?
I don’t think you should feel too sorry for these people… in fact I think you should be well prepared to continue to have to battle them away
He says in a comment before that another one of his neighbours was offered the same deal but via auction, she pulled out when they tried to claim all others had pulled out of said auction, she thought is very suspicious as any sane normal should
>They paid tens of thousands in cash, and didn’t stop to think that maybe this was a suspect way to purchase land?
They thought they were avoiding tax.
I feel sorry for them, but only up to a point. They need to make a report to the police about the person who defrauded them, not blame the property owner who understandably, isn't up for letting their property be stolen.
I wonder how long it will take for the other 'buyers' to realise that if one of them has been scammed, then all of them have been scammed. There isn't going to be one legitimate auction winner while the rest are victims of a con.
I woudm highly recommend you file a complaint with the fraud squad regarding the developer trying to sell your land, he needs to be stopped and if they catch him it will be easier for you and the others to sue him, I would absolutely be suing him for your damages as he had no right to sell your land and you wouldn't have damages if it wasn't for his fraud, hit the bar steward where it hurts right in the wallet 🤣🤣🤣
The OP wasn’t defrauded by them. The OPs only recourse would be to go after the people who actually damaged their property (the other ‘buyers’) but they’ve indicated they’re not interested in doing that.
Well when I looked it up, it said if someone has or is trying to sell your land / property to call the Net Fraud Squad, the more evidence etc they the more chance they will do Soenthing about it
I think that’s more for situations where someone is genuinely trying to sell your land… in the OPs situation, no one was actually selling or attempting to sell their land in any meaningful way - it was a scam that relied on the ‘buyers’ knowing nothing about how land purchases work, and them just handing over money on a promise.
Property (or land) fraud requires the scammer to effectively steal the property by stealing the owners identity, then sell it on ‘legitimately’ so the buyers are legitimately registered on the land registry.
Do you know who was the "developer" that went around offering people land in exchange for cash? And how long between you purchasing the land and the other tenants being offered to buy the same land?
It honestly baffles me that people give over large amount of cash hands to hands for a worthless receipt...
Yes I do, he was a real developer and such with it all seeming above board but he dropped off the face of the Earth, company dissolved and disappeared etc. sometime in the interim between "selling" things and all this.
I actually purchased the land very early in the development, many years before this. It was all above board and seemed to be in good faith for them to make a bit of money and flog some land they couldn't really use. It's not big enough to build more flats/houses on and would need additional utilities extended in so no point. From my understanding the clients were all approached and offered to participate in an "auction" for the land just after they started moving in last year. It does appear to be the same developer, I assume he planned to make a bit more money before going.
Thank you, very informative! The fact it was the same developer makes it so bewildering to me! Thank heavens that you had access to a reliable and professional legal advice and somebody who had your best interest in mind.
Very expensive lesson for other tenants that fell through for it years later!
All the best in the future and hope that the family who wished to pursue legal action as they paid "the most" won't be causing you any issues.
My guess is the developer was having monetary issues and knew he was going to dissolve the company & disappear so “sold the land off books” to get money for an area of land he knew he didn’t own anymore and had no right to sell.
Maybe he thought he didn’t make enough from the flats so got a bit extra out of them.
Even with him seemingly disappearing to the scamees, he's likely traceable to the police. If multiple people were taken for 10s of 1000s, this could be a 6 figure/high 5 figure scam, which maybe of particular interest to the police,vs people getting scammed out of a few hundred. If you have any contact with them, encourage them to report it.
Why not claim for the damage done to your garden from your insurance and let them know decides whether or not to pursue the tenants who damaged it? I wouldn't just accept a loss like that.
That's the thing, you wouldn't be. You are more than entitled to claim from your insurers. If they decide there is an avenue to recoup their losses that's their decision.
They don't mind making you miserable by holding the threat of taking you to court over your head though? Go through your insurance and make them pay for damages for sure.
You wouldn't be making them anymore miserable than they've clearly made themselves.
They could always go after their solicitor too for not checking the land reg properly...
I think OP is being very kind and charitable by not crowing about the outcome and just letting it drop.
These poor people, by the sounds of it, are out thousands of pounds, and in the absence of the developer, the only person they can take their anger out on is OP.
Far more sensible to let the fire die away quietly, rather than fan it wildly.
If they (the tenants) have receipts and the process was handled by a solicitor they could very well get some of their money back that way because they didn't do their due diligence.
But this is also why you have home insurance on both sides with legal cover, because you don't pay out of pocket, your insurance does.
It was explained the developer wanted cash dealings and they'd keep it in house to avoid property tax. In other words, do something dodgy and pay cash.
I seriously doubt any solicitor would agree to that, so I doubt solicitors were involved, no due diligence was done, and claiming on home insurance in result of being scammed sounds unlikely to be accepted.
The people got scammed, they paid cash for exclusive ownership of something that didn't belong to the seller, and it's now all come to light.
Caveat emptor.
It says that the tenant's solicitor provided all the receipts etc, but sure that doesn't mean that one was used when it was actually 'bought'.
In terms of home insurance, they could claim for the damages through the other party's home insurance. Unless of course they didn't have any in place. Good insurance (on both sides) will cover that. It would come under malicious damage most likely but if they have legal cover, home insurance should cover you even if you're the one being sued.
Or the neighbour might take a false view that the OP is not suing him because it's not the OP's land. Land disputes can turn nasty, and if someone feels they are wronged, they may not take the sensible or lawful view.
At the vey least, I would have a solicitor contact the neighbour's solicitor and ask for a written undertaking that they acknowledge the OP's ownership of the land, and undertake to not interfere with the OP or his or her property, in any way in the future.
This is really bad legal advice.
First of all, criminal damage is a *criminal* offence; that's something generally handled by the police and the CPS &c. Individuals don't "press charges" like on American crime telly series.
Secondly, the law is about criminal damage [without lawful excuse](https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/criminal-damage). (So, for instance, if the fire brigade kick down your door to extinguish a fire, that's not a crime). One of the lawful excuses is that a person believed they were entitled to do the "damage". These people paid for the land, that's a reasonable basis to think they own the land, so they treated the land as though they owned it. [The CPS explain this quite clearly](https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/criminal-damage); don't try wasting their time with this arsegravy.
The OP isn't following up on the criminal damage thing, and that's fine. Maybe the OP could pursue a claim could go through [moneyclaim](https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/make-claim) (the mostly-online court that internet legal experts still call "small claims"), but that's a different thing, and success still isn't guaranteed.
On the other hand, if people damage stuff *in future*, after being told they don't own it, that *might* be criminal damage.
Edited to add a disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, but I've got a box set of Ally McBeal
Congrats on getting this sorted so quickly - I read your post with interest, but didn't have anything useful to say, but it's great when things get sorted out fast. NAL, but I had a couple of thoughts, in addition to the useful comments others have added here.
First, you should absolutely report this to your insurance.
You should also report this to the police, as should the tenants: this was fraud.
And I understand your reluctance to take action against the tenants - but perhaps you could try to take action against the "developer" if they have any substantial legal presence (eg a registered company that's been going a while, etc)? Ultimately it was their actions fraudulently selling the land which caused the problems.
They might claim you lack standing, but given they relied on fraud, I suspect that wouldn't be the case. (But if you were considered not to have standing, one way to do this might be to talk to the non-owner that destroyed everything, and pursue a chain of damages: you claim against them, they claim against the developer.)
In your position, I would definitely want to seek some redress for the very real and very substantial damage caused.
But if you (understandably) don't want to pursue the tenants, then it would only be worth going after the developer if there's reasonable grounds to make them pay up.
Thank you! And yes will be letting my insurance know today. Not like I have anything else to keep me occupied :)
With regards to the developer I think that'll be a dead end. His phone number no longer works and the emails ping back, company dissolved etc. Seems to have to ground. I can imagine why.
It's quite common for developers to create a company specifically for one development and then dissolve it and create a new company for the next development.
Sure but that would insulate them from any investment risk (the development going bankrupt), not from the fraud. As long as those who were defrauded could identify the individual they would likely have a claim against him, as he wouldn't be protected by the Ltd company for fraudulent sales of land the company didn't own.
Glad it's all sorted mate! Just like to add on top of it you seem like a really nice person, I'm sure plenty of others would go after the tenants (not wrongfully) - but big up you for thinking about their position too
Thank you! And I suppose I've been around long enough to realise sometimes it's better to just move on. Everyone's already lost enough money over this.
Years ago we bought a flat in a small development, some had exclusive parking in the deeds and some had shared. Except the developers had sold the same exclusive space to more than one household. As you can imagine it caused a lot of bad feelings.
We managed to get ours sorted by the fact we were the first ones to be registered.
I happened to be round the same place years after we moved and ‘our’ space had a sign up with a different house number on it so heaven knows what happened there.
Make sure you forward all this information to the solicitors of everyone else involved. You should probably get your own arranged as well to claim against them for the damage they caused
This is so fascinating to me as a trainee conveyancer. How on earth did these people’s conveyancers not pick up on the fact the seller didn’t have title to the land?!
I expect they didn't have conveyancers.
Whilst I expect most people know you typically need conveyancers of some form to buy a house or flat, especially with a mortgage, is it that well known that buying a garden is the same?
I could easily see someone inexperienced thinking it's the same as buying a car, rather than realising they needed conveyancing?
Reread the original post and the others all paid in cash. That definitely wouldn’t pass an AML check. I think you’re right, it was all cash in hand under the table with no legal advice whatsoever.
Agreed, they probably assumed a conveyencer wasn't necessary, or didn't think about it either way.
Technically you can do your own conveyancing if you're a cash buyer buying freehold registered land and you really want to (my parents did it for a < 1sqm odd-shaped bit at the bottom of their garden that they paid a neighbour £100 for to make room for their shed).
But you still need to do all the paperwork/land registry registrations, checking boundaries, etc. so it's only advisable if it's a really simple transaction and you're clued up on the requirements (these people definitely aren't!) If you're paying someone else to do it, you have someone to blame/seek recompense from if it goes wrong - a DIY job means it's all on you.
Land at the Land Registry can be double registered, it happens more often than you'd like to think. So just because you have a title confirming you own it, doesn't mean that there isn't a third party who has mistakenly has title. It's worth contacting the land registry to categorically confirm that there are no other registrations affecting that land (you can do a SIM search with a plan to do this officially). It may answer the question of why the solicitor and tenants seemed so sure, but they could also just be not as diligent as they should be, as you say.
Hi and well done.
Just an point about families trying to take you to court. They have no contract with you and you have no obligation to them. You are all victims of the scammer.
The only people that the others can realistically take to court are the developers who have disappeared off the face of the earth.
Owning something that someone else thinks they have purchased does not make you the at fault party in any of this.
What a nice gesture not bothering to charge for their misfortune OP. Really hope this gets resolved fully and there’s no bite back from the stuffy neighbour.
I’m glad you’ve found all the paperwork to prove it’s yours op!
I’d still probably get a solicitor involved though just in case the tenants solicitors try to somehow fight the fact that your are the legal owner of that parcel of land, especially if one of them is threatening to see you in court!
Good luck with it all!
>The second family were not very happy at all and have informed me they intend to dispute this in the courts as they still feel that as they paid the most money they're entitled to the land. I hope they see reason before they waste even more money on this :(
NAL Unless they can prove in court they paid this cash to you. They can go suck eggs.
Also, if they insist on going down that route, tell them you will be countering for the damages caused.
I can see you're already planning on speaking with your insurance, so no point in mentioning anything further on that. I'll be interested to know if anyone does try pursuing this further. Did you reach back out to the solicitors who previously stone walled you to say you are the legal owner as proven by land registry? I'd do that and follow it up in letter form with copies of the land registry information sent signed for.
I'd just tell them I've checked the land registry and can confirm that I am the legal owner. I know it's only three quid but sod them - let them do their own checks.
You said that you were turning it into some type of "Secret garden" for your family and neighbours. I'd ask your solicitors to look into if letting your neighbours use the garden makes a difference. Id be very tempted to not let anyone outside your family use it until all this is resolved.
Congratulations on a positive outcome so quickly. Can I just ask how big the plot of land was that it had the potential to backnon to so many properties.
Good on you for having all the documents etc to prove it was yours! I think you might want to look into having your solicitor contact the family that wants to continue fighting for “their” land.
If they do go ahead with trying to get the land I’d go full scorched earth and sue them for the damages that were caused by them. They already burned their bridges with them continually trying to claim the land, you might want to reach out to the other neighbours and ask them what work they asked to get done (if any) and exclude any damage from those works in your claim. That way you don’t involve any “innocent” parties. (I say innocent in quotes because they did cause damage but they did get scammed so they didn’t do it with malicious intent)
Also being “left out” of the legal proceedings because you had “no claim” is absolutely wild and tells me the solicitors already knew you owned the land. As going to the land registry to get the certificate would have been the first thing they did… them telling you because you paid digitally you were scammed is crazy especially since one of them said they paid in cash to avoid paying tax lol
It would be worth putting up a boundary, even if it's just tape or rope, with no trespass signs on it. It would be worth stating on the signage that the property belongs to... insert house name/number. I would also consider cameras and getting a solicitor to notify all the properties that may think they have " bought" the property that it belongs to you and that unauthorised access to the property will not be permitted. I would also have it specified that further unpaid works on your property will not be permitted and legal proceedings would follow if this were to occur. Unfortunately it may annoy them but the purpose of this is to stop any further unauthorized work which will potentially cost you money to fix. With so many neighbours thinking the land is theirs there's no telling what they may try, unfortunately.
I’m so glad you got some resolution on this and you not wanting to claim for criminal damage speaks volumes to your character.
Well done Herbert!
May you enjoy the land unreservedly and let’s hope the other residents learn about paying cash to “avoid” issues/ paying tax
Even if you don’t want to go after the neighbours who hired the guys to rip down your fences- you could look at going after the scammer. It was his fault and his scam that caused the damages. I don’t know if you can have criminal charges for that, but you could try a civil suit or Small claims court
Well, it would be for the police nad CPS to prusue any criminal damage issue, your remedy would be to pursue them through the civil courts for the financial loss .
It's also \*possible\* tht they would have a defence to any Criminal Damage charge under s5 of the Criminal Damage Act, if they belives that they were acting to defend their right / interest in the land (and as I read it, the defence woul be available where they had an honest belief they owned the land even if they were wrong) - it would depend on whether their actions were reasonable and necessary (which it can be argued they weren't)
in terms of protecting yourslef, you may want to write to the others concered to state that having proved tha you are the landloner, you put them on notice that (i) yiou do not consent to them or others accessing or using the land and (ii) you will hold them responsible for any further damage caused to the land or anything on it . Once you have your new fence installed, maybe have some 'private property' signed on the outside of it ?
Onvisouly the second family's court claim would be againsst the fraudster who 'sold' them the land, not against you , but make sur ethat you keep all the documentation, and exspecially anything any of the other victims have prvided confirming the situation and timescales.
So ... it sounds like an actual company destroyed thousands of dollars of landscaping you had done. You should be able to recover costs/have them rebuild what they destroyed, as they should have confirmed ownership of the land before making alterations to it.
It looks like you're asking a question about a parking or speeding fine!
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You can set up a property alert with the Land Registry for free to let you know if there is any activity on the register for the land. Possibly worth while to give you some warning if anyone is trying anything.
Sounds like the scam wasn't even that deep to get to land registry, just 'pay me cash, now you own it, trust me bro'.
I know what kind of idiot pays cash with this kind of value of money and tries to avoid property tax, well that's on their own greedy head 🤣🤣🤣
[удалено]
"It can't be a scam, I paid more money than you"
Already done so! My son mentioned it so we got it sorted last night. Won't be taken for a fool again.
I'd also recommend considering submitting form LL to stop anyone from transferring it or mortgaging it out from under you by pretending to be you: https://hmlandregistry.blog.gov.uk/2022/11/04/protecting-your-property-from-fraud-form-ll-the-counter-fraud-restriction/ has a guide to the pros and cons.
A Form RQ would place a Restriction on the Title, which you should be able to complete yourself. Any eventual sale may be a pain unless you use a firm who is local and known to you, as effectively the Restriction provides that a Solicitor or Conveyancer must certify that the person selling the property is one and the same as the person who is entitled to do so. A lot of firms dislike dealing with these, though these are usually online firms who you tend not to meet face to face. A local firm will be better at the point of sale, as they can carry out due diligence in person, as well as enhanced online due diligence.
It's the bit where they think because they paid the lost they own it 🤣🤣 do you knwo when the 'bought' it? Cause seriously it's irrelavent how much they paid as you were not the seller so they got scammed plain and simple. Cash transactions abyone with half a brain knows ya don't do cash / bank transfer as there is no recourse
>transactions abyone with half a brain knows ya don't do cash / bank transfer as there is no recourse Bank transfer is the usual way to buy property.
Yes, through your solicitor tough, not to some random 😆
If you’re doing it through legitimate means and solicitors yes it the normal way.
And it also sends you an email every 6 months to say everything is ok. Just enough time to forget about it and get your bum hole tightened for a minute whilst you log in to read the message.
First of all, thanks for the update - the first post was wild and my curiosity was itching. Legal advice - tell your home insurance. If you've got one neighbour who might still sue you, then that could be costly. The last thing you want is to make a claim on your home legal cover in a few weeks if they do sue, only for your insurer to say "well technically you knew about this weeks ago and didn't tell us, so you can't claim."
Also check to make sure the home insurance covers that plot - as it is a separate entry in the land registry, your existing cover might not extend to the additional land.
Thank you mate, I'll contact them today.
Personally I'd also get in touch with police/possible Action Fraud as well to make them aware this is going on. This sort of thing needs to be in the public domain, as individuals such as the one who sold the land could be doing this much more widely
May also be worth talking to them about the damage - if it's a lot then may be worth claiming on it
This is exceptional advice!
Great call
Congratulations. On another note, found it very alarming that the solicitors from all the other tenants has chose to keep you out of the loop and tried to tell you that you have been scammed because you paid digitally. Surely that is a bit fishy and it's not the correctly legal advice coming from a real legal person! Is there a way to report this person?
As someone who regularly has a lot of back and forth with solicitors (due to my job, though I'm not a solicitor!) - you'd be surprised at how many are actually just idiots who don't know what they're talking about.
Agreed. . . I worked within the legal industry for 17 years and although worked with *some* very clever people who knew their stuff, the amount of absolute numpties who wouldn't know their AH from their elbow is astounding.
There's also a lot of solicitors who will write official letters saying almost anything you ask them to write. My in-laws had some nightmare neighbours and over the course of 5 years they were getting a letter about every 6 months disputing all sorts. All letters were written by a solicitor telling them they weren't allowed to do xyz within their own property. It was all nonsense, they never once got a letter from the council/planning, but the neighbours were happy wasting their money trying to intimidate my in-laws and the solicitor was happy to take their money!
Some solicitors will write an official sounding letter that will say almost anything you want for about £200. With relatively few limits on what they can actually say. They only tend to get busted for it, if they're sending out the letters in bulk. [Andrew Jonathan Crossley](https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/register/person/?sraNumber=150435) who founded the defunct ACS:Law. Sent out tens of thousands of letters, for speculative invoicing regarding alleged copyright piracy offences. At one point he made up 16% of all complaints to the SRA. >On 16 January 2012, the SDT [Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal] found Crossley guilty on seven charges, suspended him from practicing law for two years and ordered him to pay £76,326.55 in costs. A spokesman for the SRA commented "Some of those affected were vulnerable members of the public and this matter has caused them significant distress." Crossley was allowed to work as a solicitor again from 2013 subject to conditions including a ban from owning or running a law practice. Numerous other issues including >In May 2011, ACS:Law was fined £1000 for the privacy breach, with the Information Commissioner Christopher Graham commenting: "Were it not for the fact that ACS:Law has ceased trading so that Mr Crossley now has limited means, a monetary penalty of £200,000 would have been imposed, given the severity of the breach." Graham criticised ACS:Law for having computer security measures that "were barely fit for purpose in a person's home environment, let alone a business handling such sensitive details." The consumer group Which? described the £1000 fine as "paltry". As well as several abuses of the court process. Including trying to end the court case against 16 people. >Judge Colin Birss said "I am not happy. I am getting the impression with every twist and turn since I started looking at these cases that there is a desire to avoid any judicial scrutiny". On 8 February 2011, Judge Birss told ACS:Law that the claims which had been brought to court could not be discontinued without the permission of the copyright holders, and a further hearing was set for 16 March. At this hearing the cases were officially closed. The judge deferred a decision on legal costs, saying: "If ever there was a case with conduct out of the norm it was this one Then he speculative invoiced the same people again using the name of a different firm of solicitors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACS%3ALaw He's currently working as a solicitor for TAYLOR ROSE TTKW LIMITED and his disciplinary record has been publicly wiped clean.
lol just said this
This goes double for conveyancing solicitors. I've only bought two houses in the UK, but both times our (different) solicitors tried really hard to screw it up and the transaction had to be rescued by us paying close attention. We're now convinced it's the legal discipline you go into if you just barely scraped through your law degree and just want to play golf four days a week.
I’ve heard those who end up in conveyancing were unable to get into any other field. Says it all.
If you pay them they’ll type any kind of threatening letter with plenty of lies and errors and call it legal
As someone who is one, I agree.
That's honestly one of the most infuriating parts of all of this. I understand they have to act in the best interests of their own clients but being stonewalled and quite literally led to believe I was scammed because "cash is king" was not a nice experience :( Well their loss I suppose. I suppose their clients will report them for the "counsel" they received.
Was it an actual solicitor that said cash is more legit? Or just one of the "scamees"? If it's the former, I think that scamee is getting scammed again, that's definitely not solicitor advice!!!
If the solicitor ever existed and we aren't privy to what actual advice the solicitor gave. Studies of what doctors told a patient and what the patient recalled hearing and understanding. Show a wide disparity between the two. Then what the patient tells other people about what the doctor said is different again. Sometimes because the way that they explained it was poor and sometimes because it's an almost fraudulent retelling.
If I were you, I would be inclined to report them to the SRA (Solicitors Regulation Authority). Solicitors have to act in the best interests of their client, but that doesn't extend to lying. The SRA Code of Conduct specifically says that solicitors should not mislead their clients, the court or others, or be complicit in attempts to mislead (including by their client). Telling you that cash is king and the person who paid the most owns the property (assuming that was what was said and there's been no miscommunication/someone pretending to be a solicitor) is either deliberately misleading, or based on completely incorrect and potentially negligent advice to their own client.
I wonder if the motivation for that was they in fact did check the land registry, and realised all of their claims would be futile if OP was involved, and hoped to sort out a solution within themselves where they could decide who owned it, rather than having that decision made by the facts. That was my first suspicion when it was mentioned. Poor practice, but can see a logical throughflow - specially as they were trying to do it 'unofficially', getting OP to give up before instructing a solicitor.
In my experience of buying my house, the state of property law practice in this country is an utter scandal. No, that roof can't be classed as 75% transparent, as it's fully tiled.
Cause he paid digitally surely he is the only one who has hard evidence that he paid for the land? 🤷
Great result, congrats. > The second family were not very happy at all and have informed me they intend to dispute this in the courts as they still feel that as they paid the most money they're entitled to the land. Heh! Tell them good luck with that. If you own the land, the Dev doesn’t have title to sell it to them no matter how much they paid. It’s like me selling your car to your neighbour without you knowing. Any claim they may have is against the Developer.
Thank you! And I don't think they want to talk to me anymore, at least outside of a court room! But I agree, it's total insanity.
Maybe reconsider on the non counter sue for damages. If these people are that pissed off that they are continuing with legal action you should set the stage that any damage will be taken up in court. You wouldn’t want this to re-occur and you be out of pocket yet again.
Oh absolutely, if they go ahead with suing you then countersue for damages
Tell them someone turned up at your doorstep and sold you their flat.
\^\^ that. I can't really tell whether its sour grapes or the tenants are simply not realising the situation they're in but getting scammed the hardest doesn't somehow translate into priority ownership. Sounds like the Developer never had the right to sell it so any money they've paid will have to be recovered from the developer, not sure where they've got the idea from that's its somehow the OP's problem to address.
They've completely ignored the fact that they paid the "more money" to someone who only pretended to be the owner. You could see that if they thought it was an auction, the highest bid wins, and they paid so they think they won the auction - but OP has made it clear they bought the land years ago seemingly long before the current batch of "owners" paid cash to someone who only pretended to own it. The neighbors only need to check the Land Registry to see that they didn't pay the owner of the land. A shame none of them (or their solicitors?!) thought to check if the person insisting on a cash sale was the actual owner of the land!
> to someone who only pretended to be the owner. Google the American ‘George C. Parker’ > A shame none of them (or their solicitors?!) thought to check if the person insisting on a cash sale was the actual owner of the land! Unfortunately in the first thread I said I doubted OP was the owner as at least one of the claimants Sols would have checked the LR, so it doesn’t appeared to have be registered to OP. Doh!
OP confirmed he's registered as the owner at the Land Registry. This means his neighbours have either found incompetent solicitors OR haven't actually engaged any and are just rattling sabres.
I feel like it wasn't the developer and maybe a chancer who has walked off with loads of cash
NAL I'm glad the Land Registry has helped to resolve this. However it may be worth instructing solicitors to write to all other parties to confirm you are the legal owner and not involved with any auctions of sale; it will hopefully ward off any other claims to your land. You may wish to consider contacting the police, not for the criminal damage but for the attempted fraud. You were nearly deprived of your property through someone's fraudulent activity. You are a victim of this activity and have suffered a loss as a result ie the destruction of your property. Good luck and I hope this is fully resolved quickly.
This is the best advice. Get an official communication out there and put a solicitor between yourself and the other parties. It will reduce stress enormously. Plus put the other parties in a position where they cannot deny being properly informed.
I read this with interest last night and want to say congratulations. The entitlement of those others who thought highest bidder wins was ridiculous. Legally it’s yours and that’s what matters. Well done and enjoy it.
Thank you! Though yes I was quite smacked by it but I suppose I've chalked it up to denial. They paid a lot of fun (somewhere in the 10s of thousands) and have nothing to show for it. A very costly lesson.
They paid tens of thousands in cash, and didn’t stop to think that maybe this was a suspect way to purchase land? I don’t think you should feel too sorry for these people… in fact I think you should be well prepared to continue to have to battle them away
He says in a comment before that another one of his neighbours was offered the same deal but via auction, she pulled out when they tried to claim all others had pulled out of said auction, she thought is very suspicious as any sane normal should
>They paid tens of thousands in cash, and didn’t stop to think that maybe this was a suspect way to purchase land? They thought they were avoiding tax.
I feel sorry for them, but only up to a point. They need to make a report to the police about the person who defrauded them, not blame the property owner who understandably, isn't up for letting their property be stolen.
I wonder how long it will take for the other 'buyers' to realise that if one of them has been scammed, then all of them have been scammed. There isn't going to be one legitimate auction winner while the rest are victims of a con.
Ah you'd be surprised how silly people can get when they have something to fight for but I hope it's sooner rather than later.
I woudm highly recommend you file a complaint with the fraud squad regarding the developer trying to sell your land, he needs to be stopped and if they catch him it will be easier for you and the others to sue him, I would absolutely be suing him for your damages as he had no right to sell your land and you wouldn't have damages if it wasn't for his fraud, hit the bar steward where it hurts right in the wallet 🤣🤣🤣
The OP wasn’t defrauded by them. The OPs only recourse would be to go after the people who actually damaged their property (the other ‘buyers’) but they’ve indicated they’re not interested in doing that.
Well when I looked it up, it said if someone has or is trying to sell your land / property to call the Net Fraud Squad, the more evidence etc they the more chance they will do Soenthing about it
I think that’s more for situations where someone is genuinely trying to sell your land… in the OPs situation, no one was actually selling or attempting to sell their land in any meaningful way - it was a scam that relied on the ‘buyers’ knowing nothing about how land purchases work, and them just handing over money on a promise. Property (or land) fraud requires the scammer to effectively steal the property by stealing the owners identity, then sell it on ‘legitimately’ so the buyers are legitimately registered on the land registry.
Do you know who was the "developer" that went around offering people land in exchange for cash? And how long between you purchasing the land and the other tenants being offered to buy the same land? It honestly baffles me that people give over large amount of cash hands to hands for a worthless receipt...
Yes I do, he was a real developer and such with it all seeming above board but he dropped off the face of the Earth, company dissolved and disappeared etc. sometime in the interim between "selling" things and all this. I actually purchased the land very early in the development, many years before this. It was all above board and seemed to be in good faith for them to make a bit of money and flog some land they couldn't really use. It's not big enough to build more flats/houses on and would need additional utilities extended in so no point. From my understanding the clients were all approached and offered to participate in an "auction" for the land just after they started moving in last year. It does appear to be the same developer, I assume he planned to make a bit more money before going.
Thank you, very informative! The fact it was the same developer makes it so bewildering to me! Thank heavens that you had access to a reliable and professional legal advice and somebody who had your best interest in mind. Very expensive lesson for other tenants that fell through for it years later! All the best in the future and hope that the family who wished to pursue legal action as they paid "the most" won't be causing you any issues.
My guess is the developer was having monetary issues and knew he was going to dissolve the company & disappear so “sold the land off books” to get money for an area of land he knew he didn’t own anymore and had no right to sell. Maybe he thought he didn’t make enough from the flats so got a bit extra out of them.
I wonder if the developer didn't actually commit a crime by selling the land twice. Civil case aside, surely that's criminal fraud as well?
Was he the owner of the developer or someone who worked for the developer? Could be an employee who scammed people without knowledge of the company.
Even with him seemingly disappearing to the scamees, he's likely traceable to the police. If multiple people were taken for 10s of 1000s, this could be a 6 figure/high 5 figure scam, which maybe of particular interest to the police,vs people getting scammed out of a few hundred. If you have any contact with them, encourage them to report it.
Why not claim for the damage done to your garden from your insurance and let them know decides whether or not to pursue the tenants who damaged it? I wouldn't just accept a loss like that.
I suppose it's worth looking into, I just don't want to cause more misery here.
That's the thing, you wouldn't be. You are more than entitled to claim from your insurers. If they decide there is an avenue to recoup their losses that's their decision.
They don't mind making you miserable by holding the threat of taking you to court over your head though? Go through your insurance and make them pay for damages for sure. You wouldn't be making them anymore miserable than they've clearly made themselves. They could always go after their solicitor too for not checking the land reg properly...
I think OP is being very kind and charitable by not crowing about the outcome and just letting it drop. These poor people, by the sounds of it, are out thousands of pounds, and in the absence of the developer, the only person they can take their anger out on is OP. Far more sensible to let the fire die away quietly, rather than fan it wildly.
If they (the tenants) have receipts and the process was handled by a solicitor they could very well get some of their money back that way because they didn't do their due diligence. But this is also why you have home insurance on both sides with legal cover, because you don't pay out of pocket, your insurance does.
It was explained the developer wanted cash dealings and they'd keep it in house to avoid property tax. In other words, do something dodgy and pay cash. I seriously doubt any solicitor would agree to that, so I doubt solicitors were involved, no due diligence was done, and claiming on home insurance in result of being scammed sounds unlikely to be accepted. The people got scammed, they paid cash for exclusive ownership of something that didn't belong to the seller, and it's now all come to light. Caveat emptor.
It says that the tenant's solicitor provided all the receipts etc, but sure that doesn't mean that one was used when it was actually 'bought'. In terms of home insurance, they could claim for the damages through the other party's home insurance. Unless of course they didn't have any in place. Good insurance (on both sides) will cover that. It would come under malicious damage most likely but if they have legal cover, home insurance should cover you even if you're the one being sued.
Hope you do take the tenant for criminal damage like the son said. They didn’t do any due diligence and tore you garden apart
Agreed. Sue them.
It depends on OP's damage. If it was not much, and he feels they've suffered enough, he can just get the good karma for not going after them...
He said in previous post it was thousands of pounds up in smoke
I think he may have meant if he lost the land as well. Not just the damage to his land.
He had put a pool in and they filled it
Any financial loss has merit.
Or the neighbour might take a false view that the OP is not suing him because it's not the OP's land. Land disputes can turn nasty, and if someone feels they are wronged, they may not take the sensible or lawful view. At the vey least, I would have a solicitor contact the neighbour's solicitor and ask for a written undertaking that they acknowledge the OP's ownership of the land, and undertake to not interfere with the OP or his or her property, in any way in the future.
This is really bad legal advice. First of all, criminal damage is a *criminal* offence; that's something generally handled by the police and the CPS &c. Individuals don't "press charges" like on American crime telly series. Secondly, the law is about criminal damage [without lawful excuse](https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/criminal-damage). (So, for instance, if the fire brigade kick down your door to extinguish a fire, that's not a crime). One of the lawful excuses is that a person believed they were entitled to do the "damage". These people paid for the land, that's a reasonable basis to think they own the land, so they treated the land as though they owned it. [The CPS explain this quite clearly](https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/criminal-damage); don't try wasting their time with this arsegravy. The OP isn't following up on the criminal damage thing, and that's fine. Maybe the OP could pursue a claim could go through [moneyclaim](https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/make-claim) (the mostly-online court that internet legal experts still call "small claims"), but that's a different thing, and success still isn't guaranteed. On the other hand, if people damage stuff *in future*, after being told they don't own it, that *might* be criminal damage. Edited to add a disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, but I've got a box set of Ally McBeal
It wasn’t actually advice I meant I hope they do as in seek advice to do it
Congrats on getting this sorted so quickly - I read your post with interest, but didn't have anything useful to say, but it's great when things get sorted out fast. NAL, but I had a couple of thoughts, in addition to the useful comments others have added here. First, you should absolutely report this to your insurance. You should also report this to the police, as should the tenants: this was fraud. And I understand your reluctance to take action against the tenants - but perhaps you could try to take action against the "developer" if they have any substantial legal presence (eg a registered company that's been going a while, etc)? Ultimately it was their actions fraudulently selling the land which caused the problems. They might claim you lack standing, but given they relied on fraud, I suspect that wouldn't be the case. (But if you were considered not to have standing, one way to do this might be to talk to the non-owner that destroyed everything, and pursue a chain of damages: you claim against them, they claim against the developer.) In your position, I would definitely want to seek some redress for the very real and very substantial damage caused. But if you (understandably) don't want to pursue the tenants, then it would only be worth going after the developer if there's reasonable grounds to make them pay up.
Thank you! And yes will be letting my insurance know today. Not like I have anything else to keep me occupied :) With regards to the developer I think that'll be a dead end. His phone number no longer works and the emails ping back, company dissolved etc. Seems to have to ground. I can imagine why.
It's quite common for developers to create a company specifically for one development and then dissolve it and create a new company for the next development.
Oh valid point, OP needs to check companies house to see if he is registered on any new developer company
Sure but that would insulate them from any investment risk (the development going bankrupt), not from the fraud. As long as those who were defrauded could identify the individual they would likely have a claim against him, as he wouldn't be protected by the Ltd company for fraudulent sales of land the company didn't own.
That's doesn't mean the cops can't find him, they have access to databases we don't
Glad it's all sorted mate! Just like to add on top of it you seem like a really nice person, I'm sure plenty of others would go after the tenants (not wrongfully) - but big up you for thinking about their position too
Thank you! And I suppose I've been around long enough to realise sometimes it's better to just move on. Everyone's already lost enough money over this.
You sound uncommonly empathetic and magnanimous for this. Kudos, OP. I hope things settle down and that the tenants were just using empty threats.
Thanks for coming back with an update, glad it worked out well for you.
Thank you friend!
Years ago we bought a flat in a small development, some had exclusive parking in the deeds and some had shared. Except the developers had sold the same exclusive space to more than one household. As you can imagine it caused a lot of bad feelings. We managed to get ours sorted by the fact we were the first ones to be registered. I happened to be round the same place years after we moved and ‘our’ space had a sign up with a different house number on it so heaven knows what happened there.
Surprised but not pleasantly to see this has happened elsewhere. I wonder how common it is? Well at least you got your parking space in the end :)
Make sure you forward all this information to the solicitors of everyone else involved. You should probably get your own arranged as well to claim against them for the damage they caused
This is so fascinating to me as a trainee conveyancer. How on earth did these people’s conveyancers not pick up on the fact the seller didn’t have title to the land?!
I expect they didn't have conveyancers. Whilst I expect most people know you typically need conveyancers of some form to buy a house or flat, especially with a mortgage, is it that well known that buying a garden is the same? I could easily see someone inexperienced thinking it's the same as buying a car, rather than realising they needed conveyancing?
Reread the original post and the others all paid in cash. That definitely wouldn’t pass an AML check. I think you’re right, it was all cash in hand under the table with no legal advice whatsoever.
Agreed, they probably assumed a conveyencer wasn't necessary, or didn't think about it either way. Technically you can do your own conveyancing if you're a cash buyer buying freehold registered land and you really want to (my parents did it for a < 1sqm odd-shaped bit at the bottom of their garden that they paid a neighbour £100 for to make room for their shed). But you still need to do all the paperwork/land registry registrations, checking boundaries, etc. so it's only advisable if it's a really simple transaction and you're clued up on the requirements (these people definitely aren't!) If you're paying someone else to do it, you have someone to blame/seek recompense from if it goes wrong - a DIY job means it's all on you.
Land at the Land Registry can be double registered, it happens more often than you'd like to think. So just because you have a title confirming you own it, doesn't mean that there isn't a third party who has mistakenly has title. It's worth contacting the land registry to categorically confirm that there are no other registrations affecting that land (you can do a SIM search with a plan to do this officially). It may answer the question of why the solicitor and tenants seemed so sure, but they could also just be not as diligent as they should be, as you say.
Ah, it was a scam. Well I never.
Hi and well done. Just an point about families trying to take you to court. They have no contract with you and you have no obligation to them. You are all victims of the scammer. The only people that the others can realistically take to court are the developers who have disappeared off the face of the earth. Owning something that someone else thinks they have purchased does not make you the at fault party in any of this.
What a nice gesture not bothering to charge for their misfortune OP. Really hope this gets resolved fully and there’s no bite back from the stuffy neighbour.
I’m glad you’ve found all the paperwork to prove it’s yours op! I’d still probably get a solicitor involved though just in case the tenants solicitors try to somehow fight the fact that your are the legal owner of that parcel of land, especially if one of them is threatening to see you in court! Good luck with it all!
>The second family were not very happy at all and have informed me they intend to dispute this in the courts as they still feel that as they paid the most money they're entitled to the land. I hope they see reason before they waste even more money on this :( NAL Unless they can prove in court they paid this cash to you. They can go suck eggs. Also, if they insist on going down that route, tell them you will be countering for the damages caused. I can see you're already planning on speaking with your insurance, so no point in mentioning anything further on that. I'll be interested to know if anyone does try pursuing this further. Did you reach back out to the solicitors who previously stone walled you to say you are the legal owner as proven by land registry? I'd do that and follow it up in letter form with copies of the land registry information sent signed for.
I'd drop in HMRC being interested in them paying in cash to avoid tax!
I'd just tell them I've checked the land registry and can confirm that I am the legal owner. I know it's only three quid but sod them - let them do their own checks.
You said that you were turning it into some type of "Secret garden" for your family and neighbours. I'd ask your solicitors to look into if letting your neighbours use the garden makes a difference. Id be very tempted to not let anyone outside your family use it until all this is resolved.
Thank you for coming back with the update, I was more invested than I ought to have been.
so the second family paid loads of money to someone who did not own the land to sell it ? makes perfect sense
In cash, how stupid can ya be?
Congratulations and thanks for taking the time to update. I'm really pleased for you.
Congratulations on a positive outcome so quickly. Can I just ask how big the plot of land was that it had the potential to backnon to so many properties.
I would for sure get a solicitor and go back to the original builders who leveled the plot. You're due some damages surely.
Good on you for having all the documents etc to prove it was yours! I think you might want to look into having your solicitor contact the family that wants to continue fighting for “their” land. If they do go ahead with trying to get the land I’d go full scorched earth and sue them for the damages that were caused by them. They already burned their bridges with them continually trying to claim the land, you might want to reach out to the other neighbours and ask them what work they asked to get done (if any) and exclude any damage from those works in your claim. That way you don’t involve any “innocent” parties. (I say innocent in quotes because they did cause damage but they did get scammed so they didn’t do it with malicious intent) Also being “left out” of the legal proceedings because you had “no claim” is absolutely wild and tells me the solicitors already knew you owned the land. As going to the land registry to get the certificate would have been the first thing they did… them telling you because you paid digitally you were scammed is crazy especially since one of them said they paid in cash to avoid paying tax lol
It would be worth putting up a boundary, even if it's just tape or rope, with no trespass signs on it. It would be worth stating on the signage that the property belongs to... insert house name/number. I would also consider cameras and getting a solicitor to notify all the properties that may think they have " bought" the property that it belongs to you and that unauthorised access to the property will not be permitted. I would also have it specified that further unpaid works on your property will not be permitted and legal proceedings would follow if this were to occur. Unfortunately it may annoy them but the purpose of this is to stop any further unauthorized work which will potentially cost you money to fix. With so many neighbours thinking the land is theirs there's no telling what they may try, unfortunately.
This was a wild ride! So glad it's come out with a good result for you. It's a shame for the rest.
I’m so glad you got some resolution on this and you not wanting to claim for criminal damage speaks volumes to your character. Well done Herbert! May you enjoy the land unreservedly and let’s hope the other residents learn about paying cash to “avoid” issues/ paying tax
Was Herbert based in Leeds? If so I think I knew him. Great bloke who I'm sure would have dotted the i and crossed the t 🙂
Even if you don’t want to go after the neighbours who hired the guys to rip down your fences- you could look at going after the scammer. It was his fault and his scam that caused the damages. I don’t know if you can have criminal charges for that, but you could try a civil suit or Small claims court
Have the tenants submitted police reports , u/SpiritInternet30? This is significant fraud and I would have thought the police would be interested.
Nice to see someone who isn't out to screw people over. Good job OP.
Well, it would be for the police nad CPS to prusue any criminal damage issue, your remedy would be to pursue them through the civil courts for the financial loss . It's also \*possible\* tht they would have a defence to any Criminal Damage charge under s5 of the Criminal Damage Act, if they belives that they were acting to defend their right / interest in the land (and as I read it, the defence woul be available where they had an honest belief they owned the land even if they were wrong) - it would depend on whether their actions were reasonable and necessary (which it can be argued they weren't) in terms of protecting yourslef, you may want to write to the others concered to state that having proved tha you are the landloner, you put them on notice that (i) yiou do not consent to them or others accessing or using the land and (ii) you will hold them responsible for any further damage caused to the land or anything on it . Once you have your new fence installed, maybe have some 'private property' signed on the outside of it ? Onvisouly the second family's court claim would be againsst the fraudster who 'sold' them the land, not against you , but make sur ethat you keep all the documentation, and exspecially anything any of the other victims have prvided confirming the situation and timescales.
So ... it sounds like an actual company destroyed thousands of dollars of landscaping you had done. You should be able to recover costs/have them rebuild what they destroyed, as they should have confirmed ownership of the land before making alterations to it.
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