adopted road

mamamia

Hi all

I have been reading this interesting and helpful forum for a couple of weeks now and when I heard this about the road I live on, I thought this would be the best place for me to seek advice.

We bought our property over two years ago but we only discovered yesterday from the Highway agency(HA) that our road is not actually an adopted road when we asked them to cut an overgrown tree in front of our property. I wonder if there is any way we can make HA adopt our road and if we should have been told by the seller about this problem before we bought the property?

Any suggestion on how to go about this will be greatly appreciated.

dont_want_to_be_in_debt

mamamia wrote:

Hi all

I have been reading this interesting and helpful forum for a couple of weeks now and when I heard this about the road I live on, I thought this would be the best place for me to seek advice.

We bought our property over two years ago but we only discovered yesterday from the Highway agency(HA) that our road is not actually an adopted road when we asked them to cut an overgrown tree in front of our property. I wonder if there is any way we can make HA adopt our road and if we should have been told by the seller about this problem before we bought the property?

Any suggestion on how to go about this will be greatly appreciated.

I would have thought that first of all your estate agent should have made this clear in the for sale details. Secondly your solicitor should have pointed this out. I would speak to your solicitor to see if you have any comeback against the estate agent of the person you bought the property from as there will be costs in future years for the upkeep of the road!

silvercar

My survey report states that the solicitor should make all the usual enquiries to check that the road has been adopted by the council. I would have thought it is your solicitor's responsibility to check these things.

tee_pee_2

My first house had an unadopted road, it should have been in the house brochure (the one in the estare agents), when I made enquires at the council i was advised that they adopt a certain number of roads each year, I never went into it any further because 1 ton of tarmac accidentally fell off a JCB and spread itself all over my road!!!
but ring the council - highways dept they should be able to tell you more.

mamamia

Thanks all for replying to my post. I will be contacting both the council and highway agency tomorrow. I just hope that this unadopted road will not affect the value of our property when we want to sell.

distilled

It can take a long time for a road to be adopted for one reason or another (usually on the part of the LA). Ask your sol whether the housebuilder was required to pay a bond at the outset of the development. Small housebuilders are usually required to do this in case they go bust before the road is adopted, although if a major housebuilder built your home, this is not usually the case.

Ask the builder to deal with the tree

silvercar

Stick a gate at the end of the road, sell your property, advertising it as on a gated development and don't forget to add £100k to the price!

distilled

Surely £150K at least!!!!

mamamia

silvercar wrote:

Stick a gate at the end of the road, sell your property, advertising it as on a gated development and don't forget to add £100k to the price!

Hmmm interesting, I just love this forum. So it is better for me to have a gate on the road than to have the street adopted. Would I need someone to man the gate?

silvercar

A road near us has done exactly this, council wouldn't adopt the road (a cul-de-sac) because the pavements weren't upto their standard. The house owners stuck an automatic gate at the end. Gate opens automatically as you drive towards it. Nearly had my bonnet clipped coming out as the gate opens inwards!

mamamia

silvercar wrote:

A road near us has done exactly this, council wouldn't adopt the road (a cul-de-sac) because the pavements weren't upto their standard. The house owners stuck an automatic gate at the end. Gate opens automatically as you drive towards it. Nearly had my bonnet clipped coming out as the gate opens inwards!

:eek: I contacted the council today and they have referred me to the highway dept who advised me to put in writing.