Pot Holes

donnalou

Hi There,

I live on a road that I've just found out is owned by the Parish Council. The road is a complete nightmare it has about 10 pots holes of which most of them are over a meter in diameter. The Parish Council have told me it's up to the residents to repair even though the worst holes are about 50 yards from the nearest house. I just want to know if this is correct or if there is anything I can do. Most of the houses are privately rented so I can't see the residents or the landlords wanting to fork out any money for repairs.

The road is often used by dog walkers. I was also wondering if someone had an accident and fell down one if the holes who would be liable.

Thanks in advance for any advice

Donna

Mathew

Not heard of that before. I thought a road was either public (adopted) or private, public ones obviously being maintained at the public expense via the council. Private by the residents of the street. Is the Parish Council not a part of the district council?
Not sure about liability, a friend of mine had a nasty cycling accident due to a pot hole in a adopted road whereby he was awarded thousands in compo from the council.

p00hsticks

donnalou wrote: »

I was also wondering if someone had an accident and fell down one if the holes who would be liable.

Whoever is reponsible for the road maintenance would be liable, providing they should have been aware of the situation. So if a pot hole had been there for months or someone had it reported to the relevant body, there is a liability - if it suddenly appeared and someone fell down it a minute later then they probably wouldn't be.....

Like the previous poster, I always thought that adopted roads were looked after by either the local borough council or (for major roads) the Highways Agency. I've never heard of a Parish Council being reponsible for road maintenance - are you sure you have been given the correct info on this ?

Geenie

I don't think Parish Councils are liable for road maintenace. Paths, street lighting, rubbish bins and bus shelters yes, but upkeep of a road would be more the District or what ever main Council governed your area.

It sounds like a private road to me if tenants are expected to pay.

m_13

How long have you owned the house? It should say in the property questionnaire who is responsible for the road if it's any different from the norm. It does sound like an unadopted private or public road. Public roads can be unadopted if they don't meet the standard to be adopted. There's information on roads in Kent here which estimate £400-£500 per metre to bring a public or private road up to the standard where it can be adopted.

Does it say anything about being partially responsible for the road in your title or is there a covenant on the property? I've lived in a house where we had to share the cost of maintaining a road to the garages equally with others who had access. Needless to say our solicitor raised it as an issue because trying to persuade everybody else to stump up money and gain agreement on what needs to be done is always going to be difficult.

If nothing is mentioned on the title and it is an unadopted private or public then the title is considered to be defective as it is missing something:

Where a road or sewer is private, and so the relevant public authority is not responsible for its upkeep, the deeds to each property which uses it should contain a covenant to pay a fair proportion of the cost to maintain and repair it. Furthermore, even though such a covenant may exist, the title may still be considered defective, since this would be a positive covenant, and positive covenants are generally only enforceable between the original covenanting parties. For example, if two people buy a property served by a private road from the builder who includes repairing covenants in each transfer, then those two people can enforce the repairing covenants against each other, however if person A sells their property to person C then person B will not usually be able to enforce anything against person C. He may be able to make a claim against A, but as time passes and the properties change hands several times it will quite quickly become impossible to trace the original owner.

The proper way to deal with a private road situation (though you will probably be powerless if buying the property second hand) is for the builder to set up a management company, made up of the frontagers to the road, whose function is to collect contributions (whether annually or an adhoc basis) toward maintenance. A restriction should then be placed on each person's title which states that the property cannot be transferred to another person unless the new owner enters into a direct covenant with the management company to share the cost of maintaining the road. This way, every frontager will be an original covenanting party and the covenant will be enforceable against them.
It is rarely practical, due to time constraints, to set up a company as above during a conveyancing transaction, and there is little else that can be done save that the situation should be reported to the purchaser and if the purchaser is taking a mortgage, the lender, and their instructions should be taken.

The council (not the parish council) should be able to provide you with maps or information showing the status of the road. If it is an unadopted private or public road then the council will not maintain it.

donnalou

Thanks for your replies.

We only rent the property. It was the local council that told me that it's owned by the Parish Council. The Parish Council told me they own it so it's private land. Which means they are doing us a favour letting us use it to get to our properties, but it's down to the residents to maintain it.

Sorry if I didn't make it clear in my first post

Donna

poppysarah

Places to report it
http://www.fillthathole.org.uk/
http://www.fixmystreet.com/r