As a contributor to the forum, I am the first to say "don't ask anonymous bulletin board contributors, take proper professional advice" but this is a case where legal advice has been taken and we've run up against a brick wall, so any suggestions would be welcome.

A family member lives in a village within the Green Belt. There is a field of around 2 acres between her house and the next property. The owner of the field put in an outline planning application to develop a substantial number of houses and, although this was rejected, the 2 adjoining owners were worried by the potential impact on the village and their own properties in particular, if development were ever permitted in the future. The owner of the field then put the land up for auction, with the freehold being subject to an 'overage' agreement specifying that they would be entitled to a share of the increased value if the land was ever developed in the future. My family member and the owner of the property on the other side of the field got together and bought the land in their joint names. It has been divided down the middle and each party has annexed their half to their own property as 'amenity land'. So far so good. They now wish to divide the title so that each owns the part annexed to their existing property, rather than the whole being held in joint ownership. This will also be necessary if either party wants to sell their property as they do not currently own half each, but the whole in joint ownership.

Now here's the problem. The original owners of the field, who had retained the 'overage' rights in the event of future development, have subsequently sold those rights to a third party. The division of the land and the registration of the ownership with Land Registry as two separate titles requires the agreement of the owner of the overage rights. Despite the fact that the current owners acknowledge the rights and understand that they would have to pay a proportion of the increased value if the land were ever developed, the owner of the 'overage' rights has refused to give his consent and is now not even responding to communications. The lawyers being used by my family member seem to have run out of ideas as to how to take this forward. Is there, as in leases, a concept that consent cannot be 'unreasonably withheld'? Any other ideas?

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride" comes to mind. It sounds like your relative intended to do this but didn't check out the legality first in the hope of blagging their way to what they wanted. It didn't work. Stop trying to game the system.

It was probably a mistake to raise this on a public forum. All the responses so far miss the point. If there is an actual property lawyer out there (not a barrack-room one!), I'd be interested.

Thank you, Alan, but I am really regretting putting this one up!

Both co-owners are quite happy with the position at the moment. They are each happily using the half adjoining their respective properties and a fence has been erected down the middle by mutual agreement. That was always the intention. There are no issues about 'squatters rights' and they don't care about CGT but the current position, where the whole is jointly owned, needs to be resolved. Clearly there would be a problem if either party wished to sell or, for example, one of them died.

The 'overage' rights run with the land. It makes no difference who owns the land, nor whether the land is developed in part or as a whole. If 'development value' arises, he gets a share of it. I probably mis-stated in saying that he needs to 'give consent', it's just that as his interest is noted at Land Registry, he needs to be a party to the documentation so that there is a direct contractual relationship between him and whoever is the current owner of the land. It is in his interest that that is so. I think what is going on here is that he knows that the land was specifically bought to prevent development and it is highly unlikely to happen - (I imagine the overage rights were bought for a very modest sum as a result) - but hopes that he can extract some value by being difficult. As you say, this needs a lawyer. They already have one, but not one prepared to come up with a solution or take a sufficiently robust line, so the answer is to find one who will but I just thought that in the meantime I might get a legal opinion here (see the thread title!). As it is, I've had plenty of opinions but none actually addressing the issue or having any knowledge of the law!

Thanks, Mr J.

"I think you are being somewhat unkind to people genuinely trying to offer helpful suggestions in their own time for free on an Internet forum.....All the suggestions look positive to me."

It may have been a reaction to being accused of "blagging" and "trying to game the system", but perhaps I misunderstood!