Rights of access / Access to private property

arcon5

Maybe somebody will have knowledge of this tenants rights..

2 properties on a street corner... one split into two apartments; one house round the corner. There is a back yard which can be accessed from the ground floor apartment, by the first floor apartment via a side gate and by the other house via a back door.

The garden is owned by the landlord who owns the two apartments.

What legal rights does the 'house round the corner' have to access/use this privately owned area bearing in mind her backdoor opens into it?

And if she has property (some step ladders and few bits for example) stored against the side of her property in this yard -- can the landlord of the two apartments demand they are removed and she does not leave personal possessions out there?

shaun_from_Africa

Rights of access is a bit of a specialist area, so you (or the landlord) needs to get a copy of the property deeds and speak to someone who really knows about this stuff.
As the door of the corner house opens into the private area, there may well be something written down that gives them permission to use the land for access, but I would be very surprised if they are entitled to store anything there.

TonyMMM

Download a copy of the deeds for ALL the properties concerned from the Land Registry - they should clarify who has what rights to the land.

Optimist

I assume this is a assured shorthold tenancy
What does it say in the tenancy agreement ?
Does the tenant maintain the garden or is it the landlords responsibility ?

Forwandert

I can't see anywhere in the OP where the landlord has complained the tenant have no right of access for walking through the area only he doesn't want items storing on his land which seems a pretty reasonable request tbh.

arcon5

It was an assured shorthold agreement and has no mention of back yard.

The story behind it is when we left the property we asked our neighbough if she could hold a couple of items for us (we was very close with them). A few days later the agent emailed us to say we should remove it through the neighbough or they will and charge us £50 as the land belonged to the landlord of the two apartments (one of which we leased) -- we thought fair enough and quickly removed it.

Several months later we are today filing out court claim against the landlord as they haven't returned the deposit and still charging us £50 for what they now describe as "storage" for the few days we mistakenly asked our kind neighboughs to hold on to a few items for us.

Optimist

arcon5 wrote: »

It was an assured shorthold agreement and has no mention of back yard.

The story behind it is when we left the property we asked our neighbough if she could hold a couple of items for us (we was very close with them). A few days later the agent emailed us to say we should remove it through the neighbough or they will and charge us £50 as the land belonged to the landlord of the two apartments (one of which we leased) -- we thought fair enough and quickly removed it.

Several months later we have filed court proceedings against the landlord as they haven't returned the deposit and still charging us £50 for what they now describe as "storage" for the few days we mistakenly asked our kind neighboughs to hold on to a few items for us.

Charging you storage would be wrong given the details as stated by you, and them not repaying the deposit is also a silly move as the judge can award you up to 3 times the amount of the deposit.

arcon5

Optimist wrote: »

Charging you storage would be wrong given the details as stated by you, and them not repaying the deposit is also a silly move as the judge can award you up to 3 times the amount of the deposit.

We did alot of research into suing them for failing to protect our deposit. But reading case law and speaking to a solicitor its strongly recommended NOT go down that route as judges are favouring landlords. Which makes the whole deposit protection scheme a waste of time, since either landlord or tenant can opt out of their resolution process in favour of using the courts anyway.
I'm also told the penalty claims go by the fast track route which can get expensive -- especially if you loose!

Its a joke.


But about £50 of the deposit was left after ridiculous deductions which they still failed to return. So I can't imagine that looking good either.

Optimist

arcon5 wrote: »

We did alot of research into suing them for failing to protect our deposit. But reading case law and speaking to a solicitor its strongly recommended NOT go down that route as judges are favouring landlords. Which makes the whole deposit protection scheme a waste of time, since either landlord or tenant can opt out of their resolution process in favour of using the courts anyway.
I'm also told the penalty claims go by the fast track route which can get expensive -- especially if you loose!

Its a joke.


But about £50 of the deposit was left after ridiculous deductions which they still failed to return. So I can't imagine that looking good either.

I believe the Alternative Dispute Resolution Process tends to be the favoured option now. This might be why the solicitor did not favour the court route However if you have had legal advice and choose to ignore it I wish you luck. For what it is worth I doubt the judge will give any special favour to the landlord, they will assess the points in your case against that of the landlord assuming of course that they defend.

arcon5

Optimist wrote: »

I believe the Alternative Dispute Resolution Process tends to be the favoured option now. This might be why the solicitor did not favour the court route However if you have had legal advice and choose to ignore it I wish you luck. For what it is worth I doubt the judge will give any special favour to the landlord, they will assess the points in your case against that of the landlord assuming of course that they defend.

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. We was advised NOT to sue the landlord for the 3x statutory penalty for not protecting our deposit. Because recent cases mean it would be likely that we would loose and they would countersue for costs.

I wish we could use the ADR to resolve the dispute with the deposit, but the money wasn't protected so our only option is the courts.

Optimist

I have PM'd you with the name of a legal firm who do no win no fee on such cases. They might consider it too late given you have already issued proceedings but you can try

I have no connection with said firm.