Shared access/driveway.

RobertoMoir

liubeliu wrote: »

If you like the house so much I would enquire whether the drive could be transferred to a new management company by the present owners prior to purchase (all house owners being directors), this should take care of the maintenance. The remit could also cover the water with the water company billing the management company and all households settling there portion of the bill with the management company. Clearly buy in of all the owners of the other houses would be needed so probably not a quick fix

Otherwise is the house worth the potential problems?

Like you say, buy in by the current owners of the 'other' properties is an issue - how does this solve any of their problems? This would be an ideal solution though, I just don't see them getting to it from where they are.

SuzieSue

I know it's your dream home and you don't want to lose it, but I assume your seller doesn't want to lose the sale either, so it is up to him to sort this mess out. If he doesn't he will never be able to sell the property and you need to ensure he knows that.

daisygrabber

My views:
Shared drive not a problem. We own a house where the "shared" drive belongs to our neighbour & we have guaranteed access rights to it. Before we bought the house, the drive was retarmacced and I know that the owners of our house argued against the need for it & payed only a nominal sum towards it.
However, retarmaccing drives does not happen often & is a cost you could consider.

The water is more of an issue and must be unusual. Can't the water company be called in to provide seperate supplies?

Having said that, I have seen lots of companies where this situation occurs & it never seems to incur any problems.

Good luck!

bristol_pilot

Shared driveway = big problem. I have known a dispute over a shared driveway go on for 40+ years, also known of a mortgage being refused on a property with a shared driveway.

In practice, whatever access rights you think you have cannot be enforced in reality. Unless you fancy taking your neighbour to court each and avery time you want them to move their car that's blocking you in or out.

Car insurance can be significantly cheaper if the vehicle is kept overnight on a driveway as opposed to the street. Hence people will park their cars on a shared driveway and never mind what problems it causes for next door. And they will park caravans and do vehicle repairs on the shared driveway too. Nightmare. Avoid.

DVardysShadow

Water is fairly easy to sort out. Put a water meter on the property you are buying. Leakage can then be calculated as the difference between the master meter and the sum of the sub meters and apportioned.

Kaeuqs

Thanks for the responses.

I've looked at the deeds from the Land Registry, and there is a clause regarding the maintenance of the road, each user paying a fair proportion (according to use). It also identifies the method of settling dispute, which is via the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. There is no mention of how the proportion according to use, should be calculated. As pointed out by one of the users, the frequency of the road requiring repair is likely to be low.

Parking on the shared access road/drive is not an issue. The deeds are clear that the access road is not to be parked upon. Each house has it's own drive, off of the access road, therefore I see no legitimate reason for a car to be parked upon it (other than car breakdown)

Regarding the water, it has been written that the other houses pay based upon their water meter readings, not their proportion of the water used. The difference being that the cost of water losses are borne by us. This written statement is only a response from the Vendors. I cannot find anything in the documents which clarifies this further. As advised, I'm going to ask for a clarification, in writing, of who pays for the water losses.......our solicitor has stated that it is us!

Is it our dream home? No, probably not, but after 18 months of looking, its a pretty good compromise. I don't want to walk away from the deal just because of my own "cautious", "conservative", "pessimistic" nature - but it seems the majority are in line with my thoughts. I think there is a little more work/clarification to be done by the solicitors before the deal is done.

POPPYOSCAR

Kaeuqs wrote: »

Thanks for the responses.

I've looked at the deeds from the Land Registry, and there is a clause regarding the maintenance of the road, each user paying a fair proportion (according to use). It also identifies the method of settling dispute, which is via the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. There is no mention of how the proportion according to use, should be calculated. As pointed out by one of the users, the frequency of the road requiring repair is likely to be low.

Parking on the shared access road/drive is not an issue. The deeds are clear that the access road is not to be parked upon. Each house has it's own drive, off of the access road, therefore I see no legitimate reason for a car to be parked upon it (other than car breakdown)

Regarding the water, it has been written that the other houses pay based upon their water meter readings, not their proportion of the water used. The difference being that the cost of water losses are borne by us. This written statement is only a response from the Vendors. I cannot find anything in the documents which clarifies this further. As advised, I'm going to ask for a clarification, in writing, of who pays for the water losses.......our solicitor has stated that it is us!

Is it our dream home? No, probably not, but after 18 months of looking, its a pretty good compromise. I don't want to walk away from the deal just because of my own "cautious", "conservative", "pessimistic" nature - but it seems the majority are in line with my thoughts. I think there is a little more work/clarification to be done by the solicitors before the deal is done.

What makes you think that?

With the bad weather we have been having the roads have been and still are in some places not very good.

Our shared road is always needing to be done, with potholes filled in at least once a year.

dippy

Kaeuqs wrote: »

Is it our dream home? No, probably not, but after 18 months of looking, its a pretty good compromise. I don't want to walk away from the deal just because of my own "cautious", "conservative", "pessimistic" nature - but it seems the majority are in line with my thoughts. I think there is a little more work/clarification to be done by the solicitors before the deal is done.

I don't think this has anything to do with "conservative" or "pessimistic". Any sane person would run a mile away and never look back.

This has the potential to either be problem-free or a problem of monster proportions and you don't want to leave it to luck which one you'll get. :eek:

chris_m

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

With the bad weather we have been having the roads have been and still are in some places not very good.
Our shared road is always needing to be done, with potholes filled in at least once a year.

To be fair, that rather depends on the condition of the tarmac in the first place and the location as well as the level of use.

Filled potholes will frequently open up again with use, rain and frosts because, unless properly repaired (i.e not just filled but dug out and bonded to "good" tarmac, they are a weak point in the road surface. This is not a problem if the road is good and unbroken in the first place.

If the area concerned has a propensity to suddenly pop up a spring under a road when it rains, that will wash away the subsoil and leave a void which traffic will then push the tarmac into and break it. In extreme cases the water will do it all by itself. If that sort of envronmental condition doesn't apply, then there's no reason for the road to break up.

Generally a good condition road shouldn't cause problems until the tarmac comes to the end of its useful life, but a repaired one frequently will - again and again.

suebfg

I'd never buy a house with shared access/private road - save yourself the hassle in the long run and buy something else