Property boundaries - potential dispute over side access

Land_Registry

G_M has already linked you to the relevant online material and princeofpounds has highlighted the fact that the right of way may appear on only the adjoining title

With any boundary/right of way issue it is important to understand the purpose of both the register and the title plan. The title plan will be a basic plan of the area as surveyed by Ordnance Survey around the time when the property was first registered. The plans main purpose is to show the general boundaries of the property.

If for example the passageway did not exist on the OS plan at the time of registration then it would not be shown. That's the same for any physical feature of course so buildings can change shape, be built, knocked down and so on but the general boundaries and registered extent never changes.

Rights of way can be complex areas of the law but if a right has been granted by one landowner to another then it would invariably appear on what is called the subjective title, namely the one over which the right of way runs/exists and princeofpounds has referred you to this.

Passageways between Victorian houses are very common and the original intention would often have been to provide rear access for the terraced properties. Over time of course social habits have changed and the use of such passageways can alter.

You refer to the property having a gate onto the passageway;others, not just the terraced houses, using it; and the previous owner's regular use of it. If no registered right of way exists then it may be worth exploring the possibility of the previous owner having acquired a right of way over time and through regular use - something to discuss with your solicitor as appropriate although I do appreciate that the owner is now deceased which may make supporting such a claim harder to demonstrate.

Land_Registry

G_M wrote: »

As well as downloading ( £3 here) the LR Plan for the neighbough, you could also do a LR 'map search'.

Instead of searching for an address, you find the local area on a map and it shows ALL the Titles in the area. The passageway might actually not belong to either of you - it might be owned by the local authority or, indeed some other organisation or individual.

And you've read the Title document? all 3 sections? There is no mention of any access restriction or access rights granted by another document?

Just to clarify that the link provided takes you to our Map Enquiry service which is available to all and can be used to identify the area and zoom in on the passageway to see if information is available online. It won't show you all of the titles in the area though.
Sometimes it can be difficult to identify narrow passageways precisely and often it is better to make a postal application using form SIM as explained in our online guidance.

The MapSearch service is a separate service and only available at present to our business customers who use the service as part of the normal conveyancing process.

This should not be an issue for the OP though as presumably the solicitor will make enquiries of the seller re the right of way and access.

AnnieO1234

Just a side note on the pipe work too, I'm envisioning it like a drain pipe running horizontally across that wall. If you don't own the land beneath it you would be encroaching onto the already difficult neighbours land (if they own it of course) which could create even further problems for you in respect of disputes.

Of course both your prospective neighbours and you need to weigh up the potential costs and problems on future sales that a dispute on the record could bring. If you really want this house push for it and to heck with them, as the LR rep says you may be able to claim access rights; if the house is just "okay" and not your dream home or location walk right away, run in fact.

Xxx

TrixA

Wow a lot to digest here, thanks very much to everyone who has commented.

I've now downloaded the LR titles and plans for two of the four neighbouring flats, including one belonging to one of the individuals who sent the response to the Executors' lawyer. I'm a complete novice, but they appear to show that the flats are leasehold - the boundaries shown relate only the individual flats and do not include the disputed passageway. In that case, how do I find out who actually owns that land? Will there be a separate title somewhere for the block of flats?

I also wondered if we could claim a right of way based on ongoing use, but from the limited reading I've done that would seem to require continuous use for 20+ years, without it being disputed by the landowner. Whereas the neighbours have clearly had words with the previous owner of our property. He owned the property from 1997-, so not quite 20 years.

I'm quite worried about this but I'm not going walk away lightly. The house is in a part of London where prices have been rising rapidly and we were looking for 11 months before having this offer accepted. We found that 11 months hugely stressful. We were spending every Saturday trekking across town to attend open homes, putting in offers on lots of properties, usually in situations where there were multiple offers over asking price, and missed out every time. Prices are continuing to rise, such that we have almost been priced out of the entire area. We are FTBs buying in order to start a family, and feel we are running out of time to do so.

And yes, AnnieO's description was exactly what we were envisaging in terms of plumbing. We'd also want to put in a new kitchen (the existing kitchen backs on to that wall), so assuming that would require some works to the wall also.

princeofpounds

I'm a complete novice, but they appear to show that the flats are leasehold - the boundaries shown relate only the individual flats and do not include the disputed passageway. In that case, how do I find out who actually owns that land? Will there be a separate title somewhere for the block of flats?

There will be a freehold title sitting above all those leaseholds. It might be owned by the leaseholders in some fashion or by a different person. IIRC when you look at the leasehold address there is normally a link to the freehold title and plan.

TrixA

Land_Registry_representative wrote: »

.You refer to the property having a gate onto the passageway;others, not just the terraced houses, using it; and the previous owner's regular use of it. If no registered right of way exists then it may be worth exploring the possibility of the previous owner having acquired a right of way over time and through regular use - something to discuss with your solicitor as appropriate although I do appreciate that the owner is now deceased which may make supporting such a claim harder to demonstrate.

Just to clarify, there are two gates - there is a metal gate securing the passageway from the street. There is a second (wooden) gate in the fence separating our property's back garden from the passageway. The neighbour's letter to the Executors' lawyer refers to this gate as an "abusive gate" built by the owner of our property to illegally access their land and asks for it to be removed. The response from the lawyer is that this gate has nothing to do with their clients (the Executors) and that an owner/tenant of one of the other flats in the block had informed them that her husband had built it! If so, it appears that at some point there was a sufficiently cordial relationship, such that one of the neighbours constructed a gate linking the two properties. Not sure if that helps us. I'm not sure if the previous owner also used/had access to the second gate to the street - if he didn't, some of the things the neighbour is accusing him of (using it to move furniture, maintain his garden etc) don't really make sense.

Also, to clarify that neither of the properties is Victorian. Ours is one of a row of three 1930s terraced properties, whereas the block of flats is later, probably 1950s. I wondered if there's likely to be any documentation indicating what was on that site before the flats were built, and if so whether it would help us.

PasturesNew

It seems to me that a lot of your work would involve you wanting to do things that aren't what the gap is for anyway. If the passageway IS owned by next door and the probate house has the right to pass/repass, then that won't include doing things like running pipes over/under/along the passageway, or vents for cooker hoods or waste water pipes for sinks/whatever.

The only right you're likely to discover is a right to walk up/down it at most .... not to be using it to install equipment (pipes/vents) and to use that ground (belonging to next door) for your services.

They'd be able to theoretically use that space to do that as they own the space... but not you.

Prothet_of_Doom

If there was any confusion, and/or evidence of snotty neighbours, I'd walk away.

I say this with the experience of owning 3 properties with some shared access rights, which were VERY clear and normal neighbours.

TrixA

PasturesNew wrote: »

It seems to me that a lot of your work would involve you wanting to do things that aren't what the gap is for anyway. If the passageway IS owned by next door and the probate house has the right to pass/repass, then that won't include doing things like running pipes over/under/along the passageway, or vents for cooker hoods or waste water pipes for sinks/whatever.

The only right you're likely to discover is a right to walk up/down it at most .... not to be using it to install equipment (pipes/vents) and to use that ground (belonging to next door) for your services.

They'd be able to theoretically use that space to do that as they own the space... but not you.

I'm not sure I understand how this can be the case as the house would not really be viable as a dwelling without the ability to run services along that wall. I'm sure there have been services running along that wall since the house was built - from memory there is at least one existing pipe running across it, a vent for the cooker and presumably pipes for washing machine etc . I can understand that we would not be allowed to excavate etc, but we would simply be running pipes along a wall that we own, or installing vents etc. What is the normal situation with end of terrace properties - how is it that this sort of thing doesn't arise all the time?

Based on the advice given above I've now located the freehold title for next door which names four freeholders and shows the boundary as including the passageway, no mention of any right of way

System

The stuff that is there has probably achieved the right to stay there. You have no rights to add extra.