Is it legal to have your home completely surrounded by someone else’s private land?
Watch to find out what experts think of the decades-long land dispute at these PJ apartments, where a shady land deal has left residents with no legal entrance to get home.
this is an interesting story but for those who prefer to read, here the article linked in the video description:
https://thefourth.media/apartments/
I also ran this through smmry to summarize. Below is the result:
The Apartments With No Entrance A shady land sale has left the residents of Sea Park Apartments locked in a decades-long land dispute, with no control over their own homes.
These apartments are “Enclosed” in more ways than one: The original developer of the apartments sold the apartment’s carpark and common areas - which surround the apartment blocks - to an individual, leaving residents in the unusual position of having their homes completely encircled by someone else’s private land.
Built in the 70s and completed in the early 80s, Sea Park Apartments is one of the earliest apartments in Petaling Jaya, if not the earliest, constructed at a time when most residential developments in the area still involved landed properties.
This meant residents had no way to access their homes without first trespassing on private property, and no control over the common facilities sited on that private land.
The individual who purchased the disputed lands is Yap Say Tee, who once managed a hotel owned by the developer, and was earlier approached by the developer to manage the car park at Sea Park Apartments.
With the developer’s sale of these lands to Yap, the rules of the game changed: The developer is no longer the registered owner of the disputed lands nor responsible for addressing the remonstrations of the residents, which reached a peak in 2013.
With the facilities on private land, access road on private land, the property value will go down, and residents will have no agency.
… And this is why you get covanents on housing estates/blocks and indemnity insurance if you don’t.
In the US, it’s usually an easement written into the deeds.
I’m sorry I don’t follow you. Can you elaborate?
In the UK you can add permanent contracts to land: https://use-land-property-data.service.gov.uk/datasets/res_cov
In my estate, I own my house, but the road/surroundings are owned by the estate company. However they are covenanted to provide me certain rights/services. In return I must give access for structural repairs etc (and pay estate maintenance fees)
These covenants are linked to the land, so even if they somehow sold it, those rules should (to my understanding) remain for the new owners.
Edit: They can’t 100% promise I can get access though as there is a footpath of unknown ownership that crosses the road, so my solicitor forced them to buy me a 100year insurance policy for the value of my house for the unlikely risk of losing that access
Estate law is very complicated. It’s interesting to see how different countries handle it. Thanks for explaining that to me. I really appreciate it.
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