Close to exchanging, problem arisen

AppleCore

We accepted an offer from FTBs back in July and were expecting to exchange any day now. Before the buyers put in the offer they raised the fact that the road the house is on forks off and several houses and a small block of flats face onto this tarmaced area. This area is shown divided up on the deeds but it is not clear if it is owned by the occupiers of the individual houses. The buyers asked who is responsible for the upkeep of this area and we replied truthfully that we didn't know, they seemed happy with this and the sale progressed. But this has been raised by the buyers solicitor and could be a potential problem.

We bought the house ourselves 3 years ago and our solicitor did not raise the issue. We have spoken to our neighbours and they don't know anything about it, there is no maintenence agreement in place and the area has never been resurfaced since the properties were built. I contacted the highways agency and they did not know who was responsible, suggesting either the local council or the housing association (the block at the end is housing association owned).

Is this enough for us to lose our buyers and have trouble seliing at all? I'm really worried about this and especially annoyed that our solicitors didn't bring this up when we bought the house. Where do we go from here?

G_M

Well, they might pull out but it seems a pretty stupid reason to pull out.

Tell them (officially via solicitors) to 'rely on their own enquiries', but call them and have a friendly chat. Explain that no one in the street has ever needed to contribute to maintenance and it really isn't a problem.

sprocker1

This is the problem we encountered with the house we bought at the end of last year.

The access drive was previously owned in common with the other properties on the (8 house estate) via a managment company, again owned by the residents.

The managment company disolved and the land was swollowed up by the "crown estate" in effect they own the land and are the managment company, should it need re-surfacing etc.

Our solicitors stalled at this point, UNTILL we found a document stating that we had a continuous right of way over the land.

As long as you have a stated right of way there should not be a problem, I hope!