Iron Bru › Forums › Blast Furnace › The unregistered strip of land. › Reply To: The unregistered strip of land.
Quick reminder of what David Hilton said at the fans forum.
He stated Swann had promised there were no issues with the land when the price was agreed. 3 issues had then come to light on investigation by solicitors.
1. The so called ransom strip had been discovered between the stadium and the training pitch. It was thought probably just an error in the deeds joining 2 parcels of land and would be easily resolved by applying to the Land Registry. Hilton asked Swann (as owner of the land to do this). Hilton’s solicitors view was this was a fairly minor issue but would take 8 to 10 weeks due to Land Registry response times. Swann refused to do this.
2. There was an issue of access at the other side of the stadium granted to the original landowner (a farmer whose name he thought was Jackson). The access was to fields the other side of the railway line. He felt Swann would have known about this and should have told him as it could impact any potetial redevelopment.
3. Swann had told him that existing outline planning permission was still in place for the apartments. The council had told him the permission had lapsed.
Hilton said he had offered to pay Swann £20k per month rent to give Swann time to resolve the issues and that he would pay the agreed purchase price once resolved.
Hilton said Swann refused to do anything and ceased to communicate with Hilton from that point on.
Hilton also explained his plan to personally rent the stadium to the club in the meantime and predicted Swann would probably sue and try to evict the football club. Pretty much what has started to happen in the last 24 hours. I am quite surprised it has come as a shock to anyone – probably the only surprise about it is that it has taken this long.
Hilton seemed to believe Swann would have difficulty in evicting the club at least in the short term. I am sure Swann thinks differently so I guess we will soon find out who is correct.