is it worth calling into the land registry office?

I have bought a house which is in a development of 5 houses. A bank is selling the development. I know the 4 other buyers and no one has finalised the sale as we all have the same problem through our respective soliciors.

There is a small part of the overall site which doesnt seem to registered in anyones name and this seems to be the hold up. No one seems to be able to get to the bottom of it and we have been told that it could take some time to solve and our solicitor is not too good at communicating. They are leaving it to the vendors solitior which I appreciate would be correct but they are telling us that they will call us and for us not to call them.

They did say at one stage that it may be worthwhile to call in to the land registry office to see if they have any records and I am wondering if they would be able to help or would they talk to people coming in off the street?

I should mention that this was originally a green field site. The owner received planning permission, sold it and then it was sold again to the actual builder. I mentioned to our solicitor that usrley this would have been an issue in the past but the answer i received was something along the lines off sometimes not all solicitors are as thorough as they should have been when doing their work.

any advice?

Any member of the public can visit the Land Registry/Property Registration Authority and inspect the records that they keep:

http://www.landregistry.ie/eng/Contact_Us/Land_Registry_Contact_Details.html

I wouldn't waste your time calling into the Land Registry - unless you want to waste money as well.
You may be looking for a document that doesn't exist - a non-existing transfer from a prior owner.
That having been said, its and education in itself, but bring a site plan with field boundaries.
An ordnance survey map of the housing estate site would be useful.
There should be one on the planning file in the Council offices.

This should have been dealt with in the primary conveyance.
It may go back to the original sale from the owner to the builder.

It may go back beyond it - the original folio may have held the error unnoticed.
Often these things only come to light when a development occurs, as is the case here.

The trouble is that some folios or rights of way aren't registered or aren't registered properly.
Thus parcels of land - or more usually wayleaves/ rights of way - don't get transferred.
This ends up leaving everyone in a pickle at sell on.

At the design end, one workaround is to ensure that the land without unknown title does not form part of

- a service route
- an access route
- a house proper
- a house site

Working the design of the housing estate house, roads and services layout so that piece of land without title so its in the middle of a public open space can be useful.
If that is the case already then it should be possible to swear a declaration which doesn't include the piece of land or specifically omits it.

Otherwise, you may have a problem, or rather, the bank has.
I know of one case where the owner's relation was traced to New York.
A distant cousin, he didn't know he had an interest in the land, which was causing consternation back home.


ONQ.

[broken link removed]

All advice on AAM is remote from the situation and cannot be relied upon as a defence or support - in and of itself - should legal action be taken.
Competent legal and building professionals should be asked to advise in Real Life with rights to inspect and issue reports on the matters at hand.

I rent a house in a development which is more than 10 years old. There is a small part of the overall site which is unbuild. I would love to buy this peace of site and build fill-in house there. Obviously, I need to negotiate this with the owner of this part of the estate. Can anybody advise on how to find out who is the owner of this site.

If you have no local knowledge or source you can do a planning file search and company search.
The planning file search will reveal who the applicant was - probably a development company.
The company search should reveal contacts and the directors names - then its legwork.

Alternatively your local estate agent should know who the beneficial owner is.
Of course, as soon as he gets a sniff of a sale you may be sorry you spoke!


ONQ.

[broken link removed]

All advice on AAM is remote from the situation and cannot be relied upon as a defence or support - in and of itself - should legal action be taken.
Competent legal and building professionals should be asked to advise in Real Life with rights to inspect and issue reports on the matters at hand.

Thanks onq. Regarding the planning files search should I apply to county counsil?

The Planning Department of you local county council should have a record of the application for the estate, which if its built ten years, may have been lodged under pre-2000 legislation - which came into force on 1st Jan 2001, for development IIRC.

The old style application form usually had details of the owner on it. If not it will have the name of the development company. If not it will have the name of the agent who lodged the application.

With applications this old, it is likely that you will have to oeder the file and that usually costs around €30 - each local authority differs. Some local authorities may have the file online. Some may not have the file!

Best of luck with the search.


ONQ.

[broken link removed]

All advice on AAM is remote from the situation and cannot be relied upon as a defence or support - in and of itself - should legal action be taken.
Competent legal and building professionals should be asked to advise in Real Life with rights to inspect and issue reports on the matters at hand.

Eventually I've found out who is the owner of this site. I is the development company. What should i do next? To contact the development comp and make an offer for the site via solicitor?