Help deciphering title deeds

Blodwen

Hi there,

Not strictly a buying issue as we already own the house, but I'm hoping someone with some legal knowledge can help me decipher some legal speak in the charges register part of the title document I have just downloaded. It's for the property next door to us, which is split into flats- the owner doesn't live there and I got hold of the title to find out their details in case we need to contact them about a party wall. Anyway, I came across this and am not sure I understand it:

Charges Register
This register contains any charges and other matters
that affect the land.
1 The land is subject to the following rights reserved by a Transfer
of the land in this title dated 25 October 1971 made between (1)
Mr A and Mrs A and (2) A Property & Investment Company Limited:-
"EXCEPT AND RESERVING unto the owner of No 57 X Road aforesaid
(in common with the owner of No 59 X Road aforesaid) at all
times for the more convenient user of No 57 X Road aforesaid
the right to go pass and repass on foot only between No 57 X
Road aforesaid and Y Road, aforesaid as at present
enjoyed over the pathway situate at the rear of the premises
hereby transferred"

I live at 57 and the flats in question are at number 59. 57 is the middle property of 3 so the rear is only accessible through the house, there is no back alley or anything. Y Road goes along the side of number 59, which is a corner house. Does this mean we have an access right to the road through their garden? I doubt we'd ever use it (their walls and fences would prevent it anyway) but would be nice to know anyway!

Many thanks in advance

Richard_Webster

A lot of older terraced houses had accesses through back gardens often immediately at the back of the houses which may or may not have been used.

The rights are still there and you may just have to accept that - it may be possible to get an indemnity policy against the risk of the rights being enforced - you would need to ask your solicitors about this.

Sometimes when houses had been tenanted for years the landlords/freeholders sold the houses off but didn't know the details of the individual houses so the walls/fences could have been there for years - but their solicitors put the wording in just in case!

chappers

I believe the OP is the one with a right to cross the property of no 59.
They may have deprived you of your rights by erecting fences and walls.

Blodwen

Thank you both.

Chappers, you are right in that it is the neighbour who has this in their deeds and us who have the right of way. Do mean they have deprived us of it by walls etc in a purely practical sense or is there any legal depth to this? As I say, it's highly unlikely we'll every need to use it but would be good to know just in case.

Richard - thanks, we used to live in a terrace but as it was a whole street of them it had an alley, as do pretty much all others in the area. Most of the the houses in road we're in now (all Victorian) are pairs of semis with their own drives at the side but ours is odd in that being the last block it's in a set of 3, with us being in the middle, hence me never having come across anything like the wording in the deeds before. Just hypothetically, if we ever did need access through the right of way is it enforceable, and would we have a right to ask them to take part of the wall down?!

Thank you both again for the info, it's been really helpful.