Can you buy land annonymously

muddle84

Hello!, Is it possible to buy land without the current owner knowing who they are selling to?

I know its easy to find out who owns a piece of land on landdirect.ie but i'm talking about through the buying process.

buyersagent

Hi muddle

It would be possible to buy land without the current owner knowing who they are selling to, up to a point.

You would instruct someone (be they a professional / friend / family) to act on your behalf in terms of bidding and they could sign the Contract for Sale to acquire the property in trust. Some contracts might specify that the purchaser cannot re-assign the Contract to another party for the purpose of completion (generally to avoid delays in closing) but most reasonable vendors would be willing to remove this clause if their solicitor has included it by default.

Once contracts are exchanged, the vendor would be bound to the terms of the contract and if they tried to renege, they could be sued for specific performance to complete the contract. In advance of the closing of the sale, true identity of the purchaser would normally become known as their name would have to appear on the transfer deed (Deed of Transfer / Conveyance / Assignment) in order for the title to pass to them upon completion.

If you were really dead set on the current owner not finding out whatsoever during the process, there are further steps you could take to shield the true identity of the purchaser but generally speaking, unless it was an extremely sensitive situation, it would be sufficient to shield your identity up to the point where contracts have been exchanged and parties are bound to complete under the contract.

I hope that helps.

muddle84

That' great info. Thank you very much for taking the time to put that together for me!