
The Holes in the Map: England’s Unregistered Land - robin_reala
https://whoownsengland.org/2019/01/11/the-holes-in-the-map-englands-unregistered-land/
======
danieltillett
I have to love this quote from one of the articles on this site.

 _Asked for his advice on how young entrepreneurs should succeed, the late
Gerald Grosvenor once replied: “Make sure they have an ancestor who was a very
close friend of William the Conqueror.”_ [1]

1\. [https://whoownsengland.org/2016/08/17/to-the-manor-born-
mapp...](https://whoownsengland.org/2016/08/17/to-the-manor-born-mapping-the-
grosvenor-estate/)

------
seanalltogether
One thing this article omits, and I believe cuts the heart of a larger issue,
is that the UK doesn't have a property or land value tax. They have a council
tax, which is applied to a household, but there is no tax on holding onto
parcels of land indefinitely. As a result, there is no need to know who owns
these lands.

The UK especially needs a land value tax as they have one of the highest
population densities in europe.

~~~
orf
London somewhat inflates that density. In reality the UK has buckets of free
space and doesn't desperately need to develop it all into housing.

That's not to say we don't have housing problems, but they are not rooted in
"there isn't enough land".

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tlarkworthy
"The Index Polygons dataset can’t be mapped publicly – I’ve written before
about this data and the legal challenges involved in doing anything with it.
But I think there is no IP problem with showing the holes in the map."

Wow, a figurative AND literal loophole!

~~~
azernik
The writing linked there: [https://anna.ps/blog/how-to-use-land-registry-data-
to-explor...](https://anna.ps/blog/how-to-use-land-registry-data-to-explore-
land-ownership-near-you)

Interesting tidbit: "The government only released this INSPIRE data because of
a European directive, which it tried to oppose."

Yay Brexit!

------
njarboe
The fact that the state does not have to sanction land ownership is pretty
cool. I did not even have this in my mind as a possibility of existing in an
advanced country. I wonder what other countries have this situation. It goes
in line with the idea of common law (law is just made of what people find
customary and when there are serious conflicts, a judge with a jury sorts it
out[1]). I learned about the Magna Carta in high school history in the US, but
I didn't know that the anti-authoritarian roots in England were so deep. No
wonder people who live in places with corrupt governments prefer to own land
in England and other places where culture and law descended from English
culture(Australia, Canada, the USA, etc.)

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juries_in_England_and_Wales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juries_in_England_and_Wales)

~~~
pmyteh
Sadly, this has little to do with an anti-authoritarian streak. It's mostly a
combination of continuous property rights going back more than a thousand
years (some of these unregistered bits have belonged to the Crown since the
Norman conquest), and it being not-inconvenient for large landowners to be
able to avoid scrutiny.

People with dodgy money would indeed like to buy English land, partly for the
legal certainty you suggest, and partly because we've historically been very
slow to ask from where you got it...

~~~
walshemj
Its also I suspect a reaction against they naughty shit around expropriating
land in the english civil war an dteh wars in Ireland.

The echo's of the ECW still effect politics in the UK today

------
reitanqild
Nice idea at the end:

> the government should require all land to be registered, with details of its
> beneficial owner, before it can receive farm subsidies.

~~~
dukoid
How does one currently find the owner if he is not registered?

~~~
IshKebab
Sounds ridiculous but you basically can't. You can ask neighbours, try to look
at historical maps etc. But there's no guarantee you will find the owner (if
they exist).

If you can't find the owner that doesn't mean there isn't one. They can turn
up at any point with a deed that nobody else knows about and only they have a
copy of and say "this is mine".

Yes it's stupid.

~~~
Sniffnoy
I think the question is intended to be, "How does the owner presently receive
farm subsidies if the land isn't registered and we don't know who owns it?"

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
They - or more likely a front company - claims the subsidies. If a form goes
in and the claim looks plausible, subsidies are paid. I strongly suspect title
isn't checked.

Interestingly, the UK has a "squatter's rights" law not many people know
about. If you fence off some land and use it, it effectively becomes your
property after a number of years if no one challenges you.

I've seen people use this to extend their gardens into common land.

~~~
robin_reala
12 years (or at least it was in the early 90s): we let a neighbouring farmer
graze his sheep on some land we had, but had to ceremoniously turf them out
every so often to reset any possible claim in law.

~~~
Sniffnoy
Note that legally speaking you didn't actually need to do that -- if they're
there with your consent, it's not adverse possession.

------
angry_octet
It is reassuring to see England beginning to catch up with the antipodes.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title)

The old Land Titles Office buildings were built as fireproof strongrooms, much
like we build data centres today:

[https://www.heritage.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/...](https://www.heritage.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/116305/LTO-
HIS.pdf)

Unfortunately we are still suffering from Thatcherite ideology, which is
dooming us to corruption: [https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/unauthorised-
privatised-...](https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/unauthorised-privatised-
nsw-land-titles-registry-hiked-fees-by-1900-per-cent-20181004-p507ri.html)

And woeful blockchainery: [https://www.afr.com/real-estate/nsw-land-registry-
to-test-bl...](https://www.afr.com/real-estate/nsw-land-registry-to-test-
blockchain-waters-on-econveyancing-with-chromaway-20181015-h16nnq)

------
chkaloon
Huh, I think I'll draw myself up a deed for the unregistered cricket field
next to St. John's College in Cambridge. Nice area, you know.

~~~
smadge
Presumably the owner with the actual deed will object.

~~~
chkaloon
He'll have to prove that ownership, and I know a pretty good lawyer :)

~~~
Lazare
I really, really doubt you know as good a lawyer as the actual owners of that
land do. That's sort of the point of the article; the unregistered parcels are
owned by the elite.

~~~
clort
Also the land registry are pretty good about looking at the facts and making a
reasonable decision (though you do have to pay them to come out and look at
the situation)

A family member of mine did this when the neighbours were being somewhat
contentious as the official map data showed a part of her garden to be their
land but the land registry people simply remarked the boundary officially on
the historical wall.

~~~
DanBC
But watch out, neighbour disutes about land ownership are well known for being
awful and they can run for years, draining the savings of both parties and
lowering the value of both properties and causing significant hard feeling.

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hyko
A centralised register of all property is not an unalloyed public good. Maybe
hold onto your paper records somewhere safe, just in case of fire (or worse).
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070819153935/http://www.channe...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070819153935/http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics/buncefield+fire+destroyed+crime+data/683952)

~~~
stevekemp
I used to live in Scotland, and when I paid off my mortgage I received "the
deeds". I had very little idea what to expect, but it turned out to be a
bundle of papers almost three inches thick, detailing every sale since the
property had been built in 189x.

Having the paper-records was fascinating, and I seeing the initial owners
staying there for 10-20 years, then a few periods where the property changed
hands every 1-3 years, for ever increasing sums of money.

At the time I received them I was told "Yeah you don't need these, really,
they're registered in the Scottish land registry". But when I came to sell the
place - from abroad, no less - the first demand from the solicitors who I'd
hired to manage the sale was "Please mail us the deeds".

I was almost tempted to keep them and say "Sorry, they're lost" to see what
would happen. But selling a property from a foreign country was enough of a
hassle that I didn't go through with it.

I do wish I'd taken photographs though, as the legalese was very nice to read.

~~~
7952
Not sure about Scotland, but in England you need the deeds to definitively
define the boundary. What you see on the land registry map is just an
interpretation based on available data. They do not actually know precisely
where the boundary is located.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Do they not have their own copies of the deeds? In the states, the local
county recorder has all of that deed data on file, and when property is
transferred a surveyor is engaged to confirm ground truth matches what the
recorder states.

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charlesdm
I'm surprised that bearer shares have been banned around the world for quite a
while now, yet land can be held anonymously without issues.

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leejo
This is pretty interesting. I zoomed in to my parent's place and it turned out
that while their street has a known owner, the next street doesn't. I know
their street is leasehold, at a cost to them of £14 per year.

So the lack of tax on land value is interesting here, because I would assume
the next street is also leasehold - perhaps some of the missing information
could be crowdsourced here, by those paying the lease, although would that
fall afoul of some other law?

~~~
stordoff
It doesn't quite break down per street - my house is freehold, but a house we
are buying across the street for my grandparents is leasehold. The land was
sold by the Church in the 60s to developers - that is leasehold, part was
retained by the council as public green spaces[1] and later sold - that is
freehold.

[1] though it was already paved over with paving slabs, so a bit of a waste of
time

~~~
pbhjpbhj
A former owner of our terraced property kept the title and sold the house
leasehold. We bought the freehold recently (c.5% of the sale value) having
been owner-residents of the property for some years; in theory the leaseholder
could have turfed us out eventually, which is crazy IMO. It seems the
leasehold system is _mostly_ a way to screw people out of money.

Sometimes it makes sense, for flats/apartments say, but rarely beyond that. It
has been used recently by house builders to gather rent from people who
thought they were owners, basically add in quite considerable hidden costs.
Leases get sold on and the new owners add considerable "maintenance" fees,
like hundreds of pounds per year (for which they literally do nothing, except
administer the charges).

~~~
walshemj
There is increasing abuse of leasehold properties in the UK developers are
trying to sell new build leasehold - with spireling ground rents that increase
massively.

[https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jul/25/leasehold-
hous...](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jul/25/leasehold-houses-and-
the-ground-rent-scandal-all-you-need-to-know)

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IshKebab
Very nice. The maximum zoom in the map is a little too far out. Also this link
does not work:

[https://anna.ps/blog/how-to-use-land-registry-data-to-
explor...](https://anna.ps/blog/how-to-use-land-registry-data-to-explore-land-
ownership-near-you%E2%80%9D)

Oh and it is not useful for finding unregistered roads - it makes it look like
all roads are unregistered.

~~~
7952
The roads are not necessarily owned by the local authority, they just have the
right to use it as a road.

Most roads started out as private land. At some point the road was adopted by
the local authority. They can then define a highway boundary which is the land
they have legal authority over. This can sit on top of existing ownership, who
can retain the freehold.

You just see gaps because the owner decided to register the plot. The land
registry will then try and guess where the highway boundary is, and sometimes
get it wrong. But it is perfectly possible for the road to revert to the
freeholder if the highway is removed.

~~~
benj111
I assume you're making reference to unadopted roads, getting adopted in,
grandfathered arrangements etc.

A road getting built today by the local authority wouldn't have this
arrangement would it?

~~~
7952
The local authority would have to buy the land (or compulsory purchase) so it
would be registered.

------
Annatar
This is great for the public, but extremely bad for individual privacy. In
this case, the need of the few rightly outweighs the desire of many.

~~~
OldHand2018
In the United States, about half of states allow for the Illinois (style) Land
Trust. Property is registered as normal with the local recorder of deeds but
the owner is a trust with the trustee typically being an attorney. Property
tax bills are addressed to "Owner of Record", etc.

If there is a need to discover the true owners, you go to court and describe
your need to a judge. If the judge agrees, a legally-enforceable order is
issued which you take to the trustee and they then reveal the
ownership/beneficiary structure.

The trustee is publicly registered, so you can accomplish most of the "I need
to know the owner" tasks without knowing the owner. For example, I need a
zoning change and must send notice to all property owners within 1 mile, or a
tree on your property fell onto my property and destroyed my shed and you owe
me money, etc. Send your letter to the trustee: they have a duty to deal with
it.

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nmstoker
Surprising to see long stretches of the Thames riverbank are not registered.
Often these have had public access but increasingly property developers
realise the value of restricting that access, so it would be good to get
ownership and access clarified so the local authorities are on top of this
problem.

~~~
tobylane
Boroughs aren't allowed to permit development that would make any of the
Thames path private. The path isn't always the riverbank but close enough.

~~~
nmstoker
That's interesting, I didn't know that. Seemed like a few places round
Hammersmith got blocked some years back but as you say maybe it's where the
path diverged from the riverside more.

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clort
This looks as if it might be really interesting, but

    
    
      "Sorry, you need to use a newer browser to see the map"
    

and I'm using "Firefox Nightly 63.0.3 (64-bit)", built about a month ago. I'm
pretty sure it has the features required..

~~~
Spare_account
I saw that message because I was blocking third party javascript, the site
uses resources from mapbox.com

