# "no man's land" - how can I find the owner?



## frash (3 Jan 2008)

Hi,

There's a stretch of land behind my house that's about 20 foot by 6 foot.

It has a very large tree in it (when I recently bought the house I'd assumed the tree was in the garden of the house to the back of me).
Anyway this tree has a few heavy & unstable branches on it that need cutting.

I got onto the coucil (Dun Laoghaire / Rathdown) & they want nothing to do with it as it's not their land.
I've asked a few neighbours & they describe it as "no man's land".

I know if I tried to build on it someone would claim it but nobody wants to know about maintaining this tree.

I have an OSI map that shows the area in question.
Does anyone know where I can get the name of who owns it?
Does the land registry deal with such small strips of land?


----------



## juke (3 Jan 2008)

Two things you could try:
1. Go into the Land Registry (Nassau Street) with the OS map and see if the land is "registered land" - if so, for a small fee, they could give you the name of the registered owner,  but not necessarily their address
2. If that fails go to the Valuation Office (Irish life centre) and they should be able to give you the name of the last rated owner - again though, not the address


----------



## frash (3 Jan 2008)

Thanks for the reply.

Since I posted I remembered that my house was on the Registry of Deeds so I presume that stip of land wouldn't be on the Land Registry.

This bit of land wouldn't have an address or anything.
It's at the end of a private laneway & ajoins the rear boundaries of a couple of houses (mine included).


----------



## juke (3 Jan 2008)

Your best bet then may be to go to the valuation office - the land may be registered in the Registry of Deeds and the owner may be the person who developed the houses originally and just omitted to deal with that part.  

It's extremely difficult to trace this with unregistered land, as transfer maps are not stored in the registery of deeds. The valuation office can at least trace the last rated owner using the map - but you are facing an up hill task


----------



## Stifster (3 Jan 2008)

Does it have access? Why don't you go in and put up a shed, farm it (i.e. plant a few veggies) and hope no-one notices for 12 years?

when you say it's aty the end of the private laneway, is it part of the laneway? You might get your solicitor to check if there is mention of it in your own deeds, as the RoD title may go back to before the individaul houses were built.


----------



## frash (3 Jan 2008)

There is access to it from the end of the laneway alright but it's *heavily* overgrown.

(Just so you can picture it I'm the last house of a terrace & the laneway provides rear access to the rest of the terrace. I don't have access to the laneway from my property as I have a side entrance - at least that's what I assume).

The houses were built in the 50s so if the land does belong to the original builder then I'd say he's well dead.


----------



## sam h (3 Jan 2008)

Def worth persueing.  A friend had a similar thing and turned out the ESB owned it & were happy to sell it to them for a nominal amount.  Made a huge difference to their property!!


----------



## polly2000 (3 Jan 2008)

I know you said you were on to the Council but maybe try derelict sites department in the council again.
A small plot of land was left derelict for years by a builder here but with persistence and the help from derelict sites department the land was given for a nominal amount to the nearest neighbour. That of course was before the housing boom but if it is of no good to the original bulder he might pass it on.




frash said:


> There is access to it from the end of the laneway alright but it's *heavily* overgrown.


----------



## frash (3 Jan 2008)

Thanks for the replies again but I'm not sure that I want the land.

It would be easily assessible from the laneway & would be a security issue plus this tree is about 70 - 80 foot tall & so wouldn't be cheap to get topped given the bad access.
I had offered the council access through my garden if they took responsibility for it but they weren't interested.


----------



## juke (3 Jan 2008)

Then definately make repeated complaints to the derelict sites section of the council until they deal with it. Also try local counsellor?


----------



## bigjoe_dub (3 Jan 2008)

you could get the special branch involved. 
I'll get my jacket.


----------



## polly2000 (3 Jan 2008)

> I had offered the council access through my garden if they took responsibility for it but they weren't interested.


As far as I know Derelict Sites Department has the right to force the owner to clean up the land so I would still give them a call.


----------



## Vanilla (3 Jan 2008)

How old is your house? You may well be able to ascertain the owner of the laneway from your own title deeds. The original owner of the land on which your house and the adjoining houses were built may have owned the laneway and granted a row to the house owners.


----------



## frash (4 Jan 2008)

Vanilla said:


> How old is your house?


 
52 years old this year


----------



## frash (26 Jun 2008)

Just to update: I chased up the council & they finally admitted that the tree is on their land!

Now they're just passing the buck from department to department.
It's now with Housing Maintainence as the estate on the other side of the land is an old council estate (even though most of it is now privately owned).

I guess I'll just have to hassle councillors to get it resolved.


----------

