Unadopted Road

Chunters_a_lot

An indemnity policy was the solution for me. Our property is accessed via a private, unadopted road. Ownership of the road has long been in dispute. So because no one would admit owning the road, no one can grant us a right of way.

The indemity policy covers any costs associated with any future challenge to us using the road for access. There are other neighbours who have been using the road for 30+ years. I am assured that any challenge should be unsucessful but the indemity policy will provide the funds to fight the case and establish our right of way.

One thing to consider is that of maintenance. Do you know who is responsible for the maintenance of the road? Will it be you and your neighbours?

It would be nice if someone did admit to owning our road - it could be repaired then (all the neighbours keep falling out every time we try to raise funds between us to get some repairs done!).

jade1986

Chunters_a_lot wrote: »

An indemnity policy was the solution for me. Our property is accessed via a private, unadopted road. Ownership of the road has long been in dispute. So because no one would admit owning the road, no one can grant us a right of way.

The indemity policy covers any costs associated with any future challenge to us using the road for access. There are other neighbours who have been using the road for 30+ years. I am assured that any challenge should be unsucessful but the indemity policy will provide the funds to fight the case and establish our right of way.

One thing to consider is that of maintenance. Do you know who is responsible for the maintenance of the road? Will it be you and your neighbours?

It would be nice if someone did admit to owning our road - it could be repaired then (all the neighbours keep falling out every time we try to raise funds between us to get some repairs done!).

Thanks for that, some great help.

Fingers crossed it will be all straightforward.. we have proposed a completion date of 30th October, with this being the only thing left to sort

Debt_Free_Chick

jade1986 wrote: »

The road provides access to a large public free car park and to the two houses

Will an indemnity policy resolve this?

That sounds odd - or rather, it sounds as though the road (the one providing access to the car park and properties) is a Public Highway. If it is, then it is (a) adopted and (b) you have a right of way over it.

I would be inclined to ask the local Highways authority if they can confirm whether the road providing access to the property is a Public Highway. The local Highways authority is usually a department within the County Council.

Is there anything on the local authority searches?

lincroft1710

DFC - I agree. I can't believe access to a council owned car park would not be adopted.

jade1986

Debt_Free_Chick wrote: »

That sounds odd - or rather, it sounds as though the road (the one providing access to the car park and properties) is a Public Highway. If it is, then it is (a) adopted and (b) you have a right of way over it.

I would be inclined to ask the local Highways authority if they can confirm whether the road providing access to the property is a Public Highway. The local Highways authority is usually a department within the County Council.

Is there anything on the local authority searches?

I know, it sounds odd to me to..

That is where it has cropped up though, on the local authority search

What happened was the HIP was done in May 2005, and the local authority search showed it as adopted.. but because the search was over 12 months old it had to be re-done..

Also the survey for lending purposes showed the road as being adopted.

Before the new search even arrived our Solicitor had doubts that the road, or the part of it where our house is is adopted.

The new search then arrived today and it appears it isn't.. I just can't understand

jade1986

I have just e-mailed the solicitor again to draw attention to the fact that the large area on the map in front of the two properties is a council car park.. After reading the above posts I realised that this may not be known by him.

Is it strange that within just over a year two local authority searches can be different?

caeler

Is it worth checking if the other properties have a right of way? i was in this sitiuation and found out that all the other properties had the right of way which was on their title deeds and it even mentioned my right of way!! It just wasn't on mine. Long shot. The land registery added it and all was fine, just asked them to refer to the other title deeds and they were happy to add.

jade1986

jade1986 wrote: »

I have just e-mailed the solicitor again to draw attention to the fact that the large area on the map in front of the two properties is a council car park.. After reading the above posts I realised that this may not be known by him.

Is it strange that within just over a year two local authority searches can be different?

The solicitor has replied and basically said it is a little strange but not unique.. guess it's just a case of seeing if an indemnity policy can be arranged, and if the mortgage lender will be happy to accepted it

Very worried

Richard_Webster

Old search in HIP probably a private one that did not go into detail as to which parts of a road were adopted and which weren't - that is a downside of private searches - so if the Council's records showed the road on a list of adopted roads and the private search company wouldn't bother to check whether the part of the road is adopted where this house is.


As others have said the right of way point is the most important.

It could be that it is a highway and just have never been adopted. Highways can become such by long use by the public as of right - access to individual properties isn't really public use. Problem is that unless you have a local ramblers association or similar people who have actually collected the evidence it is quite likely that the Highway Authority won't have any records that it is an unadopted highway. It is more likely in a rural than an urban location that they might have records of this nature.

Possible scenario is that a Landowner owned houses and the roadway. Typically houses would have been rented out or occupied by landowner's employees. Many years later houses are sold, but this happens at a time before mortgage lenders were as fussy about details as they are now - or perhaps the original buyers didn't have a mortgage. Quite possible that nobody thought about rights of access - they had always used the access so didn't think it was an issue.

Another possibility is that the roadway forms part of the Council's title to the car park (which perhaps they bought from landowners years back) but isn't an adopted highway because it only forms an access to a car park and the public have no right to use it other than to get to the car park.

Buyer's solicitors should be asking for evidence of long use of the access as of right and also carrying out an index map (SIM) search to see if the title to the roadway is registered - if it is, they can then find out who owns it!

jade1986

Richard_Webster wrote: »

Old search in HIP probably a private one that did not go into detail as to which parts of a road were adopted and which weren't - that is a downside of private searches - so if the Council's records showed the road on a list of adopted roads and the private search company wouldn't bother to check whether the part of the road is adopted where this house is.


As others have said the right of way point is the most important.

It could be that it is a highway and just have never been adopted. Highways can become such by long use by the public as of right - access to individual properties isn't really public use. Problem is that unless you have a local ramblers association or similar people who have actually collected the evidence it is quite likely that the Highway Authority won't have any records that it is an unadopted highway. It is more likely in a rural than an urban location that they might have records of this nature.

Possible scenario is that a Landowner owned houses and the roadway. Typically houses would have been rented out or occupied by landowner's employees. Many years later houses are sold, but this happens at a time before mortgage lenders were as fussy about details as they are now - or perhaps the original buyers didn't have a mortgage. Quite possible that nobody thought about rights of access - they had always used the access so didn't think it was an issue.

Another possibility is that the roadway forms part of the Council's title to the car park (which perhaps they bought from landowners years back) but isn't an adopted highway because it only forms an access to a car park and the public have no right to use it other than to get to the car park.

Buyer's solicitors should be asking for evidence of long use of the access as of right and also carrying out an index map (SIM) search to see if the title to the roadway is registered - if it is, they can then find out who owns it!

Thank you Richard, I was hoping you may see this post. Your first paragraph makes complete sense because it looks as though they have just purely searched on the street name, where the majority of it is on the other side of a jitty accessed by another road, and this is adopted.

I have e-mailed the solicitor again today because I was hoping to get an idea of how much of a problem this is going to be...

I asked yesterday whether The Nottingham would normally accept an Indemnity policy for this purpose, to which he said they would normally but he has had to refer it because of the fact that the valuation survey was done based on the road being adopted.

I am just so worrying thinking it could all be off because of this.. Would The Nottingham be likely to want to do another survey do you think?

I was wondering what my solicitor would be requesting from the vendor's solicitor.. the house is around 100 years old and there have obviously been no problems so far so surely that is a good sign?

Thank you so much