Owning your own home

Have you asked the neighbour (assuming they are the owner of the space)? I'd imagine a conversation with them is the first step and sets a good precedent in the process.

Is there any way I can convert this established use into ownership of the space

Unlikely unless there's some seriously weird shit going on in the agreement between the freeholder and the space owner/renter.

Some sort of sausage-based solution?

Who's parking in your space?

You probably should have mentioned in the previous post that you'd already agreed to leave earlier.

Maybe, but that was a plan originally hatched in December. And a lot has passed between now and then including multiple conversations about how a July exit date was obviously impossible (which alone in my mind nullifies any prior agreement), them not knowing what they were doing because they couldn’t sell the Mallorca house, Then suddenly finding a buyer for the Mallorca house, them not wanting to kick us out because they would continue renting the property if the moved to Scotland and only recently firmly committing to the idea of needing the flat back.

I don’t think it unreasonable under those circs to assume that any prior agreement has expired (If I’m wrong please tell me... I don’t want to be the asshole here). And isn’t the point of formal notice periods to mitigate against this kind of uncertainty?

For full disclosure, in the most recent conversations, spanning a couple of weeks or so, they have mentioned an October exit several times. Our response has always been that we are united in our ambition to move out as soon as possible, that we have an aspiration that this will be by October but that we will not be able to confirm the precise date until nearer the time and we know our official completion date.

As for whether my fiancé’s email constitutes formal notice, I don’t know but you now have me worried, I will re-check the contract.

I don’t think it unreasonable under those circs to assume that any prior agreement has expired

Largely, in the sense that until you have an eviction notice from your Landlord or their agent your situation is somewhat up in the air. If you mutually agree that your original leaving date was not to anyone's benefit, another date should have been agreed, or the whole thing is off.

So they shouldn't have assumed you would leave sharpish after the original suggestion fell through. If they wanted you out on a schedule, they should have taken control of the situation and served you notice.

So I wouldn't feel too bad.

But that is a fucked up situation. Presumably their agent is asleep on the job - they are the only people who are expected to know the rules to the letter, even if they don't always follow them.

He won’t sell it to me, which is why I would like there to be some archaic “right to use from historic activity” thing. That and he’s really annoying, so huffing his parking space would be LOL’s.

Ha, love it. All the best in that case.

Anyone have experience of buying a house that was lived in by smokers?

But late but yes.

You could tell which side of the bed the heavier smoker slept!

We managed to remove it through thoroughly cleaning and repainting. Kitchen was the worst because it meant scrubbing everything - fridge and freezer draws, rubber seals, etc. Most rooms required two washes of sugar soap before painting.

Smell is long gone now and our place now smells of fresh washing and shitty nappies.

In your situation I'd probably get a deep clean booked for the moving in day and maybe just hire a painter decorator to repaint your little ones room.

KFH have just been round, said that we could put it on for more, but if it was him he'd advertise at £425. He then went on to say if it was really him, he'd go for offers over 400k to get as many people through the door as possible, and get as many offers as possible, to bid the place up.

Bit disappointed at 425, but there you go.

There's squatters rights. But that has effectively been destroyed so I wouldn't spend too much time looking into it. You may have been thinking of an implied easement.

Probably easier to set up a company with someone else registered as director, then have them approach him to buy it.

Park car in his space, build a wall around it, leave it for 40 years then argue squatters rights. I'm sure we'd all chip in to fund the bricks to get things going.

In my experience, KFH over value to get you to go with them, then tell you that the price needs to drop after a month.

Interesting. I've got the guy from Pedder coming next week, which should give some context to the price.

My friend tried this tactic and didnt get a single offer over the OIEO price, so i'd be wary of agents just trying to get you in and out as fast as possible

I guess marketing for a price of x to y wouldn't help in that case. You'll get a number of offers in the low region but its the agents job to work them up.

Also just echoing what @rogan says don't go with the highest price, they'll often just want to drop it in a few weeks.

To follow up my pals situation is he got valued at 400-425, agent said go with 400 OIEO to get people through the door.

They had meh numbers of viewings and 3 offers, all around 390, and only managed to negotiate one to 400, no one was interested at going in excess of. The originally wanted to list it at 420 and lowest they wanted to accept was 410, and the agent seems to have fucked that for them.

Feel for you mate. My landlord has just evicted us with 2 months notice despite Covid regulations. Deposit not protected, no gas safety certificates, has done negligible repairs and other dodginess I won't put in writing. Still, easier for us to move out rather than dealing with his chaotic landlording.

Hence I've done some research on this - hope it helps. Definitely investigate yourself as I'm no expert. Shelter and Citizen's Advice have all this info. Also I know it's shite having someone try to ride over you and your basic rights, but try to keep things peachy civil. Good for stress levels and any mediation/legal dealings if it comes to it.

• As others have said, how you give your notice to the landlord will be stated in the lease agreement. If not explicitly stated it's normally done in writing and delivered to the landlord's registered address. So no guarantee you gave valid notice with your email.
  
• Valid notice would have ended the tenancy in July. But you've clearly stayed past the July move out date. Technically both parties should have made a new tenancy agreement, but it sounds like things just carried on as before. Even if there's been no new written contract, if you're still paying the landlord rent and residing at the property, then you have entered into a new AST in the eyes of the law. This will be a rolling tenancy in which you have only to give 1 month's notice. But as it's an AST... well the landlord still owes you 3 or 6 months notice (Covid regs.) depending on when they issued a valid section 21 eviction notice to you
  
  

TL;DR - regardless of what the landlord says you still have an Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST). You can exit with 1 month's notice, but landlord still needs to give you 3-6 months notice.

Edit: A bit more reading suggests it’s even simpler: by not handing back the keys you never ended the tenancy.

https://www.thetenantsvoice.co.uk/your_home/can-you-stay-in-a-rented-property-after-your-move-out-date/

Went with the Banham locks in the end. ~ £500 installed for a deadbolt and separate mortice lock seemed decent value and they look pretty substantial compared to your average lock.

Have you got Robinson Jackson in?

Sisters share of freehold flat purchase just fell through as she wanted to convert loft but the share of freeholder won’t agree to the alternation. Fortunately she found this out before she bought it but nightmare for the seller and something to check if you want to extend.

Deposit not protected

Doesn’t that mean you’re now quids in + you can’t get an S21?

I had been wondering if the guys technique was to give a 425 valuation when he thinks 400 for a quick sale, then suggest offers in excess of the 400, which he can then say “i thought we’d get some at 420 but it looks like the market only want to pay 400”.

I have parked in a neighbours space for ten years - through two different neighbours being resident in the flat associated with the parking space. Is there any way I can convert this established use into ownership of the space (of some kind) as I strongly dislike the neighbour?

Did you park in the space with the express agreement of the neighbour? If so, definitely no.

Although it was a matter for debate whether English law recognised an easement to park (i.e. a right to park on someone else's land) it's now definitely established that such an easement can exist. However, a tenant cannot acquire a prescriptive easement against a co-tenant of the same landlord - Bright v Walker (1834) 1 Cr.M. & R. 211 and Kilgour v Gaddes [1904] 1 K.B. 467, which are binding authorities in English law notwithstanding Lord Millett's persuasive decision in the Hong Kong case of China Field Ltd v Appeal Tribunal (Buildings) [2009] 5 HKC 231.

In theory you could acquire title to the land by adverse possession. However, parking on land will not normally amount to adverse possession as it is equivocal and could equally be explicable as the exercise of an easement of parking. Further, a claim in adverse possession in relation to registered land (and I'm assuming the landlord's title is registered) can only succeed if one of the three conditions in paragraph 5 of Schedule 6 to the Land Registration Act 2002 is satisfied (assuming the landlord invokes the right to require paragraph 5 to be applied pursuant to the right to do so in paragraph 3(1) which they almost certainly would) and none would appear to apply here. The only exception would be if you could prove 12 years' adverse possession prior to 13th October 2003 (the date when the Land Registration Act 2002 came into force) which clearly you couldn't.

You could try and argument that the principle of encroachment applies, a common law doctrine similar to that of adverse possession but which applies to tenants/lessees and which is considerably less well-established than adverse possession due to the dearth of authorities. Further, the interaction between the doctrine of encroachment and the Land Registration Act 2002 is far from clear (there's a very interesting (for geeky lawyers) paper on it here ). In my view the delightfully-named case of Smirk v Lyndale Developments [1975] 1 WLR 317 does support the proposition that a tenant can obtain good title to land demised to a co-tenant for the term of their lease under the doctrine of encroachment, but the position is far from clear.

tl;dr - probably not, and definitely not if you parked there with their consent. Establishing that you have would involve highly speculative litigation involving throwing large amounts of money at lawyers. Contrary to popular belief, this is however always A Good Thing.