Access?

bitsandpieces

In financial terms, are you getting the house at enough of a discount to cover the losses to value that could be incurred if you have to tell prospective buyers about a dispute with the neighbour or if the neighbour ends up with a 'right of way' or part of your garden? If the seller is saying that this is going to be easy to solve these issues, I'd tell them how pleased you are to hear this - and suggest that they'll then have no difficulties getting a new fence up, greenhouse down etc. prior to exchange. If the seller's acknowledging that this will be hard to sort out, you should be expecting to buy at a discount.

A home's not just an investment, of course - you need to be able to live there. If there is a dispute with the neighbour, do you have the time to deal with it (these things take far longer than you could ever believe) and can you live with the ill feeling? If there is something that makes this place uniquely suited to you, that's something to take into account - but is that really the case?

Blacksheep1979

Having another thought on the matter - if the garden is large enough could you sell him say a 2m strip at the end of it to use as access? Start at a significantly overpriced point and see how his attitude changes.

missb123

Hi, the house is side on with a railway embankment and backs on to another garden so that wont work. but thankyou anyway, we have decided to walk away if he has right of way because he is unresonable to the extreme... his desire to take his bins out the way he likes (lets not forget he has a good sized front garden) comes before my families right to privacy. this is really getting me down. i have been looking online at the ins and outs of what he may be entitled too, still raging it didnt show up on our deeds or land registry. im hoping his agreement ended when the neighbour he had the deal with moved on.

ab7167

please don't be scared to walk away, we have walked away from 2 properties that we had spent money on valuations and solicitors fees leaving us about £2100 down. The reasons we walked away were NOT trivial and in fact one of them was an unresolved boundary dispute with the next door neighbour. Although it was on the way to being sorted, we decided that we didn't want to live next door to a (possibly) fruit loop nut job (we only had one side of the storey and the official communication to go on).

Have now found a much nicer, more suitable and cheaper house - am now so glad we went with our gut feeling on the boundary issue! What will be will be, I am now a firm believer that you end up with the house you are destined for - destiny just chose very expensive and stressful route for us this time round!

The decision to walk away is horrible but once you have made it, be firm. We had the EA on the phone daily for a week trying to get us to change our mind, but we stuck to our guns. The day they stopped phoning us I felt so relieved that it was over (although the nosy part of me would like to know how the boundary dispute was/will be resolved)

Do NOT feel sorry for your vendor. They need to sort this out before they can sell to anyone, and should know this. The other sale that fell through was also down to issues that the vendor should have sorted before marketing the house and didn't (and didn't start to think about resolving until 2 weeks after we made the offer, unaware of the issues, and had spent money on the valuation).

Blacksheep1979

could use it as a bargaining point if you could be bothered with the hassle - tell the current owner of your concerns and because of this and the potential legal costs/loss of privacy etc that you want to knock £50k off the price...

SJCJDCLSC

Yes, if you don't want to give up on the house without a fight you need to illustrate how dramatic the situation has become with the current owner. This guy is clearly militant in his approach and if you drop out now, house goes back on the market, he is going to approach every new viewer the house gets. The current owner potentially has a vicious cycle to look forward to of people offering and then getting scared off by Mr CrazyBins.
I'd wager your seller also isn't going to be happy about you dropping out at this juncture considering all the other stuff you've gone through with the loft etc.

They need to negotiate with Mr Crazybins to make their property sellable.
Good luck.... if it were me, I wouldn't be able to run away from a house I loved but ultimately you will have to live next to him.

paddy's_mum

This isn't about whether he has a right of access. You already have plenty of evidence that he does not.

My entire point is that this man has all it needs to make your life an absolute misery for years to come simply by keep on making demands and pushing the boundaries (forgive the pun).

What are you going to do when he cuts a neat opening in your new fence and wheels his bin through? You can't physically prevent him without ending up in the criminal court yourself on a charge of assault. You can call the Police and they'll likely say they can't intervene as it's a civil matter so you'd better see a solicitor, madam.

You try for an injunction which will cost you the best part of a grand and the Judge decrees that you must each appoint a surveyor (another two or three grand) and go to arbitration to try to resolve the matter. You get into court and he swears blind that he has 20 years of free passage and that gives him rights. He goes to the local press in the meantime and plays the 'pity the poor old pensioner' card.

The nearest I can get to what I mean is to think about burglary and theft. We all know that it's a criminal offence but that doesn't help you very much if some young cur breaks in, steals your jewellery and your late mother's engagement ring and gets clean away. Yes, it's illegal but it happened anyway and you're left with the heartache, the financial loss, and all the emotional pieces to pick up.

With a bloody-minded old battleaxe like him, unless you're into baseball bats and dark alleyways, you are paying a huge amount of money to take someone else's problems onto your own shoulders.

Let someone else suffer the stress, the loss of a dream and the nervous breakdown.

goldengirl28

get the current owner to stick up the fence and see what happens!

if he turns nasty on her and cuts a hole through it...........WALK AWAY

tell the current owner you won't complete until its been put up and insitu for X amount of time (bit like testing the water)

Running_Horse

Did you decide to go ahead with this?

timmyt

all the houses may have rights based on long user...be careful as deeds are not always the final answer. if anyone wanting to use a gate has their own property devalued or a loss of an important amenity they may well sue. your lawyer should clarify on this point. if you are safe on long user then there is no other obvious angle