Shared access, who is responsible for upkeep?

dinkylink

Actually the word shared might be a bit misleading, let me try to explain.


I am in the process of buying a house which is in a very small cul-de-sac with 8 other houses. The house I am purchasing is basically the first one as you go into the cul-de-sac. When I visited the property I asked the vendors whether the road was adopted. They didn't know, but from the size of the road, the newness (the estate is about 15 years old) and the material (tarmac like you would use for a driveway) I assumed it probably wasn't.


This in itself isn't really a problem because as I said the build is quite new and therefore the road is still in very good condition. I assumed that if it wasn't adopted any repairs that might need doing in the (probably fairly distant) future would be shared amongst all the properties in the road.


Anyway, today my solicitor has written to me with the land registry plan and some other documents. As I said my property is the first one in. Instead of showing the cul-de-sac road as evenly shared amongst all the properties or adopted by highways, it seems to split it amongst the various properties within the cul-de-sac; dividing it up basically. Now as my property is the first one in, the red line for my property includes the extent of the house/garden, but also appears to include over the width of the cul-de-sac entrance.


So basically I guess I am asking would I be responsible for the upkeep of purely this section of road or would any costs be shared amongst all owners, regardless of whereabouts in the road they are required? I ask because obviously the bit outside my house attracts the most traffic as everybody needs to use it to enter and exit the cul-de-sac!


Like I said this isn't really a problem at the moment due to the condition of the road. But surely if I were to sell the property in a few years time any potential buyer would raise the same query and this could have a knock-on affect when I try to sell? The road might also not be in as quite good condition then.


My other query is if I own that bit of land, wouldn't the other properties need some kind of right of way to use it?


Naturally I have looked at the associated documents to see if any of the above is answered, but this isn't the case.


I will of course discuss with my solicitor when he is back in the office on Tuesday, but in the meantime was wondering whether anybody had any thoughts or has experienced anything similar?


Thanks!

dodger1

dinkylink wrote: »

So basically I guess I am asking would I be responsible for the upkeep of purely this section of road or would any costs be shared amongst all owners, regardless of whereabouts in the road they are required? I ask because obviously the bit outside my house attracts the most traffic as everybody needs to use it to enter and exit the cul-de-sac!

No idea of the law but sharing the costs seems to be easiest route. Of course you only use a little bit of the road but what if No 5 doesn't have a car or No 7 drives once a week but No 3 uses two cars every day, I think you can see the problems.

stator

Could you post an image of the title plan that shows which bits you own?

You're right, your neighbours would need a right of way written into the title register. If your own the road then the upkeep is yours unless it says otherwise in the title register.

moneyistooshorttomention

As I recall, a poster called DavesNave on here has that situation, ie of different houses in his road paying different amounts - but I'll let him speak for himself on that.

In my own road the costs are down to be shared equally and I can see that arguments could be had otherwise re respective car usage. I would certainly feel that I don't have a car, so cars don't often come up here specifically for me. But I'd be willing to bet the others would soon retaliate with comments about just how many work vehicles I've had up here to modernise my house (whilst carefully forgetting that all their houses still need modernising - so doubtless the same will apply to theirs at some point and I will spot a stream of vans/lorries heading towards their houses - presumably when these houses get sold on to the next owner...).

I wouldn't be surprised, in your circumstances, if everyone is 100% responsible for the bit outside their own home only and not at all responsible for anyone else's section. I can think of another private road round here where its quite obvious to me that all the residents discussed resurfacing the road and some disagreed (for whatever reason) and its possible to see exactly who disagreed - because nearly all the road has been done - but there are scraps of tatty road outside the houses of those who obviously disagreed (ie they'd been deliberately missed out).

dinkylink

Thanks both,


Sorry but I'd rather not post the title plan, don't want to reveal the house/location. Unlikely I know, but the vendors could use this forum!


But to describe the extent of the red line, I can confirm that it includes the property and extends out across the entire width of the entrance of the road. There's no way anybody can enter the cul-de-sac without using the part of the road which appears to be included within the title plan.

moneyistooshorttomention

Are you sure that its the whole width of the road included on your Title Plan?

As I understand it, I thought it was often deemed to be the case that road-owners in that sort of set-up were deemed to own to the halfway mark in the road and I presume that still applies even if there aren't any houses "across the road" from them to own the other half.

dinkylink

Bit of a broad question but, do you guys see this being a problem, eg something that is worth not proceeding with the purchase over?

dinkylink

thanks moneyistoshort


yes in the plan it clearly shows it extending over the entire width of the road for about an 8-10m area

stator

It's definitely something to look into. If there's no agreement about the road at all, then you can just let your section deteriorate and buy a tractor
Unless someone else has rights over your land there's no obligation to maintain it, unless possibly it's a safety hazard.
If I was responsible for the whole road and no-one else was responsible but had access rights, then it might put me off. Otherwise I don't think it would.

Have you checked the title plan of the neighbours to see if they all own a slice of the road? If so you could probably come to an agreement after the purchase.

cutandshut

My situation is that I live at the end of a drive around 120m long which I own. There are 4 other bungalows that have rights of access over the drive. Two properties have a clause, in their deeds, requiring them to pay a fair proportion of the cost of upkeep but the other two haven't.
There is no definition of "a fair proportion" so when the drive needed surfacing we all agreed to contribute in proportions according to how much of the drive we used.
I, of course, paid the most as I use the full length of the drive.
If you adopted a similar procedure you would pay the least as you use less of the drive than anyone else.
Even though I own the drive there is no obligation for me to maintain it to any particular standard and I would think that you don't either.

dinkylink

okay thanks all, I must say I'm a bit wary about the situation and will discuss with my solicitor on Tuesday.