Purchase cont.

[modeller]

The council have tried to contact the owner but finding him , let alone proving ownership has proved impossible. Finally the council would like to compulsorily purchase the land and give it to the parish for recreational purposes.
However in view of the fact they can't find or prove who owns it they say it cant be done , they dont have the power. I believe they are just making excuses , possibly to save money . The reason doesn't matter my question is under what act do they have the power to buy the land where
, despite their efforts, they can not trace the owner ?

[RAV1D]

Just tidy the land up and use it and maybe then will the owner show his face. If not then who but the owner can stop you from using his land? No one knows who the owner is or if he has or has not given you permision to use it anyway.

[factor-fiction]

Can you gain access to the land- for example could you drive a car in their?
I would have thought the owner must be paying something in the way of council tax/ business rates so contacting him/her shouldn't be impossible

[modeller]

The problem is whoever is paying , claims they dont know who the actual owner is . Its a long story going back years . When the apparent owner is found he claims its not his, it's his sons or sister or cousin who lives in Borneo or Woga Woga. If they are found they spin the same story.
This situation has happened all over the country and I know that councils can still compulsory purchase the land but at the moment I cant find the information. Councils everywhere aquire land from untracable owners when they want to build Olympic site or for Wind farms etc .

[SeaJayPea]

I assume from this and your previous post that the land is not registered with the Land Registry. If it's not then could you argue that the parish has had free and unfettered access to the land for a period of 12 years? If so, this may be of interest: (Scroll down to England and Wales)

http://en.wikipedia.o...i/Squatter%27s_rights

Good luck

[modeller]

I dont know about the Land Registration but no the parish have not had access to the land.

[buildersmate]

The land will not be registered or tracing the owner would be easy-peasy at the LR.
I do not believe that land where the owner cannot be traced can be CPO'ed - one can't buy something where the owner is not known. QED.

[modeller]

But they do it all the time with these big developments . The Olympic Site ,
Wind Farms , Airports etc . There are hundreds of people who oppose , are dead, moved etc. I read on one occasion, that the land is valued and its value is entered as a potential debt which can be claimed in the future by the owner should they turn up.
When you think of the thousands of developments that take place every year there has to be a mechanism to allow them to go ahead.
What would happen where several hundred people own the deeds to a plot it would only need one of them to have died, moved , lost the deeds etc and it could stop a whole town from being built . I believe this was common when the new towns were built after the war .
Oh! I remember I was told the name of the person who registered this field was not the actual owner.
Does land have to be re-registerd every time it is sold ?

[Eve.]

I would have thought there were ways they can CPO even if the owner is not traceable. There was a case in Salford a few years ago where they approached the Land Tribunal to prove the steps they had taken to try and trace the owner (enquiries of Land Registry, notices, advertising etc...) to assess compensation value - I assume should the owner reappear at some point. From what I gather, they CPO'd the land even though the owner was not traceable. Citation is Unknown v. Salford City Council [2007] LT.

I'm not sure about the impact of it being agriculural land on this though.