Right of access to driveway - any solution?

itsnotarace

We are looking at houses to buy at the moment and have seen one we like, but it has a major problem with it.

The house is a cottage that has been built around 1900 behind other houses. The other houses are all on the main rood, and this house has foot access from the main road down a small path. Foot access is not a problem - but the main road is so busy you could never park on it.

So, the main issue is that next to the house we're looking at, is a 2 storey factory building, that has access from the main road and this is access road is owned by the factory. This means the house we're looking at has a driveway that leads onto the factory property but no right to drive onto the factory property to get to the main road.

I've spoken to the estate agent who says the factory owner used to allow access to the previous owners but isn't willing to allow this to continue, and this has been reflected in the asking price (which it has.)

We like the house other than this (admittedly large) deal breaker but we're just looking at ways around the problem before totally ruling the house out.
Does anyone think it be be worth approaching the factory owner to discuss the possibility of offering to buy right of access from them / can this even legally be done? If so, should i make enquires myself or ask my solicitor to do it?
And if so, what do you think would be a reasonable offer? We have no experience with this sort of thing.
Bearing in mind, we haven't even made an offer on the house yet and wouldn't want to without assurances regards the access rights.
Or does this sound like a whole load of possible legal issues and expense for a non starter?

Oh and we know for sure that the factory own this land, as we spoke to the current house owners a while back and they told us that he bought the access road from the council and then sold it to the factory a few years ago...i don't know what he was thinking. I really don't.

(This is in Scotland in case it makes a difference.)

princeofpounds

Does anyone think it be be worth approaching the factory owner to discuss the possibility of offering to buy right of access from them / can this even legally be done? If so, should i make enquires myself or ask my solicitor to do it?
And if so, what do you think would be a reasonable offer?

Yes, it is possible. It's probably precisely what the factory owner is hoping to do. The price he will be hoping to charge will be most of the difference in value between the house with a driveway and a house without.


A reasonable offer would be to a) ask if it were possible, and b) pick a lower number and start from there, see what you get.


I don't know the specifics in Scotland but basically a contract will need to be formed, giving rights of way and discussing matters like maintenance, purpose, restrictions etc.


The house may well not be mortgageable without it, depending on the legal status of that path and various practicalities.


Edit to add: If it is the price that makes this look more attractive than it should be, be honest with yourself. There is a reason it is cheap. I'm not saying it's not worth negotiating but don't feel bad if you have to walk away.

Davesnave

Yes, you could approach the factory owner and maybe buy a right of way over the private road if, they are willing to sell. It's not a very unusual scenario. Naturally, you'd want to get this in place legally before being fully committed to the house.

No one can tell you exactly how much you should offer, but the maximum would be around the uplift in value if the house were served by a proper driveway. Don't start there though, because your first offer is likely to be rejected.

It's best not to speculate on why people do apparently daft things with property. My driveway here was altered some years ago with the full blessing of the neighbour, who now cannot access her garage with any vehicle other than a motor cycle, which she doesn't possess.

Similarly, the factory owner may have reasons for not wanting you to share this access at any price, like a long term plan which would conflict with free access for you.

moneyistooshorttomention

My thoughts on this are "Factory - bet that will be shut soon and then what happens to that land"

Sounds like a good excuse for a drinking session down the local pub or a good shopping session in a nearby local shop with some chatty older shop assistants. I would be wanting to find out some sort of idea of what the future holds for that factory site in your position and that might help me decide what best to do.

Then I would sit down and try and figure out just why the previous owner sold that access road to them - as there "might" be a logical reason for it (ie rather than grasping for any excuse to make a bit of extra cash and that was an obvious one).

I'm hazarding a guess that factory site is up for redevelopment at some point and both the factory owner and previous owner know it.

itsnotarace

Thanks for the replies everyone - they were very helpful. Having taken your advice and speaking at length with my wife tonight I think we've decided to pass on this house before even speaking to the factory owner.
I didn't want to muddy the waters in my initial post, but we had actually looked at this house over 2 years ago and liked it a lot at the time, but we ruled it out due to several things:-

- the access to the drive (and the owners hazyness at the time around the legal standpoint.
- Japanese knotweed being found within the boundry (but about 15 metres from the house at least.)
- the threat that the factory could close at any point and be converted to flats/offices/noisier factory etc, any of which could see that access road change purpose and block us off anyway.
- it didn't seem well taken care of, which made us think about what hidden dangers there were we would need to spend money on fixing.
- it wouldn't be our first choice of area
- owner mentioned broadband speeds weren't great due to phone line piggybacking off the factory (The whole area is cabled for Virgin except this one.)

However we noticed today that it has now dropped in price by over £90,000 (it was originally 250,000) and that initial rush of a house we knew we liked appearing at a low price got us dreaming about reducing the mortgage.

After thinking about it though, the owners were trying to sell it for well over 2 years, have now have moved out, and it's now being marketed by a different estate agent.
The only previous price drop prior to this was a 5 grand drop a year ago.
This makes me think that they have used it as part exchange maybe, just to get out of there.

After reading back over that list of negative bullet points, it's almost funny that we were reconsidering it.

moneyistooshorttomention

The legal position seems to be that Courts refuse to allow pedestrian access to a property to be blocked and insist ROW is maintained regardless and they appear to be coming round gradually to updating that position to take account of the fact that people also deem it necessary to be able to use their cars to get up their ROW and refusing to allow car access to be blocked either.

However - with the list of faults that house has - one of which would send me personally running a mile in the opposite direction (ie the JK) then I guess you have your answer anyway - ie don't touch it.

Basically - I'd say that house could be bought by someone who had the stomach for a fight on their hands (on a variety of fronts) and the battles look winnable to me - BUT it would be quite a fight before it was all "done and dusted". House with Major Problems Scenario battles are likely to be more protracted and expensive than you first think. As you say that its not your preferred area anyway - then no point in wondering whether you would be the one prepared to have that fight/spend that money to sort it all out.

Ozzuk

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

The legal position seems to be that Courts refuse to allow pedestrian access to a property to be blocked and insist ROW is maintained regardless and they appear to be coming round gradually to updating that position to take account of the fact that people also deem it necessary to be able to use their cars to get up their ROW and refusing to allow car access to be blocked either.

However - with the list of faults that house has - one of which would send me personally running a mile in the opposite direction (ie the JK) then I guess you have your answer anyway - ie don't touch it.

Basically - I'd say that house could be bought by someone who had the stomach for a fight on their hands (on a variety of fronts) and the battles look winnable to me - BUT it would be quite a fight before it was all "done and dusted". House with Major Problems Scenario battles are likely to be more protracted and expensive than you first think. As you say that its not your preferred area anyway - then no point in wondering whether you would be the one prepared to have that fight/spend that money to sort it all out.

Out of interest what are you basing that on? Ie, that the courts are now deeming it necessary to allow car access? I've certainly heard of no such thing, footfall is a lot different to car traffic. I've heard of the courts limiting the value but not forcing a RoW for cars.

moneyistooshorttomention

Its been some months since I read the stuff on ROWs. But, as I recall, there are now a couple of Court judgements that forced access to be allowed for cars as well and the legal bod that wrote that regarded it as likely that that was the way things would go increasingly in the future.

teddysmum

I wonder whether this is the house which was in the papers (last year ?) where the owner was complaining that her car was blocked in, due to loss of access.


That house was very dilapidated and the owner claimed that she had to climb over a wall to get out of the front of the house.

G_M

since this house has a pedestrian ROW, it seems unlikely.

Davesnave

Ozzuk wrote: »

Out of interest what are you basing that on? Ie, that the courts are now deeming it necessary to allow car access? I've certainly heard of no such thing, footfall is a lot different to car traffic. I've heard of the courts limiting the value but not forcing a RoW for cars.

In very many instances it would be physically impossible, or would involve impinging on someone else's property, so it seems doubly unlikely to me.

I think MITSTM is perhaps conflating this issue with ransom strips in the news, sometimes related to access from commons etc, where owners have recently started demanding money to grant a right which has been enjoyed FoC for many years..... though that's just a guess.

I doubt if we will see a link posted in support, anyway.