Buying on unadopted road - no 'bond'

owned_by_2_Siamese

Hi - would appreciate any comments!
We are in the late stages of buying a house on a small development. The houses have been build individually (self build) but a developer built roads an infrastructure. The solicitor has identified that the road (which only has a base coat of tarmac) and the sewage/street lighting hasnt been adopted by the local authority. In addition the developer never entered into a 'section 38 road bond' with the Local Authority - so there is no real obligation to complete this work (just an intention) - small local developer - their building arm went into compulsory liquidation in December (get the picture....)
Solicitor is suggesting we make a retention against the current vendor to meet any obligation in respect of the road - he has also suggested we 'think carefully' before proceeding as this could be a long term problem. Has anyone been in a similar situation? Advice/comment appreciated!

space_rider

I have lived in a house on an unadopted road. We were told at the time in 1986 that it would cost each house approximately 1,000 to pay for it to be adopted. My ex husband still lives there and it is still not adopted. If you like the house then go ahead but just be mindful of the fact that if the council do decide to adopt it you will have to pay and also fact that there won`t be any proper road surface which will result in pot holes over the years and that you will have to bring your wheelie bin to the nearest adopted road and also that there won`t be any street lighting. No one has moved out of the road for the last 20 years, apart from me so it can`t be that bad.

Ouzy

Hi I work for a local authority Highways department.

If there is no section 38 agreement and no agreement with the local sewerage authority then you would have to make arrangements for maintenance of the road/sewers through either a management company or by the developer themselves. Obviously if your saying the parts of the developer is in liquidation then I would give this property a miss unless your happy to take a risk. If in the future the sewer collapses in the road it would be up to all of you as users of it to carry out maintenance, is it a normal gravity sewer or a rising main with a pump(these can be very expensive as they also need regular maintenance). Also make sure that the developer owns all the land that you will have right of access over. And obviously make sure rights of access are granted to your property.

If the surface of the road becomes dangerous then someone would have to make it good and it will not be the local authority. You can ask for the road to be made up at some point in the future but the costs would have to be borne by the adjacent frontagers. And if the road has not been built as per the relevant County Councils Estate Roads New Development guidelines this could prove very costly. What is the designed construction of the road? You say it only has a thin layer of base course material? What about the road base below this? what is it built on? Road building is very expensive and if it hasnt been designed to the correct standards it would all have to come out and be done again.

In the end if you like the place then it is up to you if you purchase it, but if you are looking to resell in the future these problems could put future purchasers off. I`m also sure there is many people who live in similar roads and have no problems at all. Its just easier if something goes wrong being able to get the local authority to fix the problems rather than yourselves.

If you want to message me for more information then im quite happy to answer you.

Mark

silvercar

we had a previous house with unadopted road at the side of the property shared amongst 12 of us. The only maintenance was giving the council drainage team £20 (cash in hand) to clean out the drains when they annually cleaned the drains on the adopted part of the road. One long standing neighbour would go around each house collecting precisely £1.66 from each of us.