shooting rights deed or contract

[rabbitfoot]

Hi,

We bought a property with shooting rights apparently attached to it, there is a mention on our title but couldn't find the beneficiaries. So we completed the purchase and moved in. 
Few weeks later the neighbour is claiming to own the shooting rights and that he will use them unless we buy it from him. We asked for evidence of ownership as his name is not the same of the name on our title. He provided his title with the same beneficiaries mentioned over his land for the same shooting rights but still it wasn't his name... 

My question is, is there any other documents or anything official that might be linked to our title that we might have missed about shooting rights and if yes how can we get it? and if my understanding is good only the persons named in the section about the shooting rights have the right to come onto our land and shoot without our permission? 

Thank you for your help as I have been searching for months now and nobody can help me...

Best regards

[Zapp]

Hi and welcome.

Are you a member of any of the shooting organisations?  If so, they have legal departments who can usually advise.  If not, it might be worth joining to access such a service.

[oowee]

AS Zapp says. I would also be having a more detailed conversation with my conveyancing team as you would expect to have a clear understanding of what rights have been sold prior to purchase of the property? Shooting rights can (in some cases) in themselves be traded. 

[Westley]

Did you use a Solicitor during the sale/purchasing  ?  If so, I would be banging on his door.

[bluesj]

As far as I understand it ( and I could well be well and truly wrong) If he has bought the sporting rights he can let whoever he likes shoot game or deer or hunt (fox hare and deer) not that that counts any more) on the land but whats worse is it could be that you would have to ask permission, but you can shot none game rabbits, rats etc. If the sporting rights have been sold as far as I know  the only thing you can do is buy them back if leased you can wait for the lease to end.

So I would be on to the solicitor to see what is going on!  

[mossy835]

1 hour ago, Westley said:

Did you use a Solicitor during the sale/purchasing  ?  If so, I would be banging on his door.

 

this is what i would be doing.they should have found this.

[McSpredder]

I have a feeling that a covenant usually "runs with the land", not with a named individual.

[mel b3]

We had a similar situation when we were buying a piece of land a couple of years ago , the land was advertised for sale with the sporting rights ,and mineral rights included , I instructed our solicitors that the sale could not go ahead unless these rights were definitely included(and I made sure that I had written evidence of this) , the seller assured us that we were free to shoot the land , but on further investigation,  it became apparent that these rights were owned by someone else, despite many assurances from the seller that this didn't matter ,my solicitors found the owners of the rights , and had them put into my name . 

You really need to chase your solicitors on this one , as the ownership of the sporting rights should have been clarified before the sale went ahead , they're the experts,  and they should have the answers that you need.

I know that it isn't always a named person or person's that own the rights , it may be that the rights are retained by whoever owns other land , or the descendants of previous owners etc , again , your solicitor would be the one to find out this information. 

One word of advice though , be nice to the guy that claims to own the sporting rights , you may well end up buying them from him , and the relationship that you build now , may well be reflected in the price at a later date .

I hope that things work out for you 👍.

[Lloyd90]

Really is something that should have been sorted out BEFORE going ahead 😐 amazed this wasn’t really scrutinised beforehand. 

[Benthejockey]

Solicitors can be particularly useless in property sales. 99% of the time it's a box ticking exercise for them. Our solicitor wasn't bad but our vendors solicitor was useless and ours were constantly chasing them.

[CharlieT]

You really need to pose this question with your solicitor, or if he is incompetent, instruct one who specialises in sporting rights.

As you may know, sporting rights go with the land and would not appear on the deeds unless they have been sold or retained by a previous owner. Remember that if separated, they may have been sold several times and therefore the name of the current owner will not appear in your deeds.

Land registry may have details, but certainly won't have records prior to the1925 act.

As I said you need to speak to your solicitor.

 

[mel b3]

3 hours ago, Benthejockey said:

Solicitors can be particularly useless in property sales. 99% of the time it's a box ticking exercise for them. Our solicitor wasn't bad but our vendors solicitor was useless and ours were constantly chasing them.

We had a similar experience,  my solicitors were very much on the ball , I'd stated clearly in writing that if we didn't get the sporting /mineral rights ,the sale was off , the sellers firm got quite childish in the end ( I still have all correspondence, and it was real playground stuff), in the end ,my solicitor just went straight to the people that did own the rights , and dealt with them directly. 

[Westley]

I was once in a syndicate, where, although various properties on the shoot were sold off by the Landowner, he always retained the shooting rights. This came to a head with an anti buying a large property there and then set about constantly complaining about the shoot and frequently calling the Police.  I visited them and explained that although, technically, we could stand on their front lawn and shoot, we would not be doing that.  I advised them to contact the Estate Manager to clarify their position regarding the shooting. The outcome being we never heard from them again.