non adopted/private road problem

mbenno

Hi All,


we have an access road that runs down the side of our property - not sure yet whether it's non adopted or private (no signage to say it's private). We have had some building work done and had to take down part of the fence (which we own) that runs down this 'access road'.
We have now come to reinstate the fence and thought it would be ok to put a gate in to give us access to our garden.
The people who live in the properties at the bottom of the access road have gone mad saying that what we've done is illegal etc.
We had no idea this would be an issue and if we've made a mistake then we'll take it down.
I've been to my local planning office and they've advised me to fill in a form and ask for 'retrospective planning permission'. They also advised going to the land registry office to find out who owns the road - but their website isn't that user friendly.
Can anyone here offer any ideas as to whether we are breaking the law?


thanks

Richard_Webster

I doubt if planning has anything to do with this.

Get your Land Registry entries from https://www.landregistry.gov.uk (NOT one of the other sites that charge you more for the same thing!) and see if you have any rights over the access road at the side.

Presumably other locals are saying you have no right to use it. Possibly one of them owns it. Ask them why they think you can't use it but they can. Possibly they have no more right than you - but there may be rights in their LR entries and you can check that by getting copies of their entries from the LR.

AnnieO1234

If it's a private road, like the road that runs in front of my property and services half a dozen houses then it means you probably have no right of entry over it, and certainly sticking a gate in your garden to access it is wrong on your part.

X

mbenno

Hi Annie,


that's the crux - we can't find out if it is private. we suspect not. They imply we can't use it solely because they are responsible for it's upkeep - that's all they will say.
To be honest they have looked for confrontation all the way through but that's not the reason we have put the gate in - if we've made a mistake it's an honest one.
We have now looked at the title register for one of the properties and we can't find anything that says we can't use it.
would it be ok to post what it says on here?

Prothet_of_Doom

Private or adopted ? Right of access or not?

Okay a PRIVATE road is one where there is no right of access, and never has been, so rights of way officer at council might be worth talking to.

Adopted is where the council don't fix it.

If you look at the deeds on my house, I appear to own the public highway, but the council adopted it so they take responsibility for it.

If you look at the deeds on an unadopted road a person will own it, but that does not make it private.

To be truely private the road must have a gate on it and it must be locked one day of the year.

Now it may be that someone owns a tiny strip of land between the road and your property, which they is no right of vehicular access with.

My personal view would be to ask the person who told you you have no rights, to prove that he has those rights, because if he can prove it, you'd like to discuss paying him some money to gain access.

Leave the gate for now, if it's closed it's a fence anyway.

jamesml

Its a public record so don't see why you couldn't post what it says.

If its your fence you could do anything you wanted though - your fence could be made up of a series of gates, if thats what you wanted surely?

How often are you even going to use it? If its just for access to your back garden, I can't see what the issue is to be honest - its not like you are driving down the lane surely, just walking down it? Do they stop people walking down that lane as well?

moneyistooshorttomention

What type of gate are you talking about?

Are you referring to a narrow back garden type gate that is only suitable for a person to walk through on the one hand OR a wide type gate meant for a vehicle to drive through on the other hand?

I live in an unadopted road and my own attitude to such a situation would depend on which type of gate we are talking about. The reason being that a "person walking through it back gate type gate" would mean no extra wear and tear on a road I was partially responsible for. On the other hand, a gate that a vehicle could go through would mean extra wear and tear on a stretch of road that someone else would have caused.

This sort of consideration does come up on roads like this. I know that I have been studying the patches of "wear and tear" on our little road and working out what caused it and realised that some of it may be down to OTHER peoples vehicles and nothing to do with my own house iyswim (rather than being something to do with the vehicles of EVERYONE using the road).

You do start differentiating between fair wear and tear (ie caused by everyone) and wear and tear caused by one particular household operating one particular way when you live in such a road. I'm not so much concerned with the way said "particular household" is operating, but what I AM concerned with is that it wouldn't be fair for me personally to have to fork out any money because of THEIR particular way of operating and I will therefore be thinking twice as to whether to cough up for the extra wear at that particular point that I estimate they alone have caused.

This may be why your neighbours are upset, ie that they envisage you might cost them extra money on dealing with wear and tear type repair costs because of that gate iyswim.

Prothet_of_Doom

The planning permission is actually a red herring, becuase the council can give you planning permission for the gate, but they can't give you permission to use a private road if it is private, and not just unadopted.

(Next door to my inlaws put in a planning application to build an extention which actually knocked down and rebuilt their garage wall...That's great, but the wall wasn't theirs, and you can't build a house on someone elses land, even if you have passed planning)

mbenno

there is no signage to say 'private road' surely there would be if it was private? I don't recall them ever saying it's private either.
It's definitely non adopted - as I said their whole argument seems to be we can't use it simply because they pay for it's upkeep.
Could call their bluff I suppose and ask outright if they think it's private

mbenno

sorry, struggling to keep up here - it's a gate wide enough for 1 person to walk through.

moneyistooshorttomention

mbenno wrote: »

sorry, struggling to keep up here - it's a gate wide enough for 1 person to walk through.

In that case I wouldn't be objecting personally, as it wouldn't create the extra "wear and tear" situation.

Have you made it plain to them exactly what type of gate you are talking about here (if only to work out in your own mind whether they have cause to complain or are just being awkward for the sake of it)?