unadopted road query

josswallace

We have recently bought a house in an unadopted road. I have ascertained that the water and sewage are maintained by the water companies and I have been informed from the local council land charges department that it is classed as a private road. I have submitted a request to the Land Registry (£4) to see if the road is registered and am waiting on a reply, but there is nothing in the deeds of the house covering this issue.

There is a local residents association that maintains the road but it is in a pretty poor shape and not all residents will agree to contribute. I am trying to get an understanding of what options are open to us to try and get a resolution to these issues.

If we were to approaach the council to get the road adopted what is involved in getting all the residents to contribute. If we leave part of the road in "an unfit state" and the council are forced to do repairs do the council just bill those residents that have frontages on the parts that need repairing.

Any help on these issues would be greatly appreciated.

comeandgo

The council will only adopt roads that are up to a certain standard, they won't take any on that are in disrepair.

bouicca21

Actually I think they will take on roads in disrepair, well they did in my last area - but they will bill all the residents for their share in getting it up to scratch and the bill will be massive.

Part of my road is unadopted, complete with huge potholes that get filled in every now and then by the residents association. The council have no obligation to repair it, and won't do so.

Of course the advantage is that it has very low traffic volume - no self respecting car owner would ever drive over it unless absolutely necessary.

G_M

Have you done a Land Registry Map Enquiry to identify the owner of the road? Instant onine response and £3 per Title Plan.

Have you checked the deeds of any of the other properties in the road? Even if your own don't mention the road (ROW, upkeep etc), it would be interesting to know if other properties had ownership, ROW, maintenance obligations etc: Land Registry here

Land_Registry

The SIM request (£4) is presumably being done as the online service did not provide any detail - in such cases it is likely the road is unregistered but the SIM is needed to confirm this.

As G_M mentions the registered titles for adjoining properties may reveal details of interest but it may also be useful to understand the legal presumptions which can be applied to Roadways

There are two presumptions relating to the ownership of the soil of a roadway (where a road or path is a highway maintainable at the public expense, the surface vests in the highway authority).

The first is that the owner of land abutting on a road is also the owner of the adjoining section of the road up to the middle line (ad medium filum is the term to research here).

The second is that where a conveyance or transfer of land abutting on a road is made by someone owning land on one side of it only, then if they can be proved or are presumed, to own also the road up to the middle line, this half of the roadway is included in the conveyance or transfer.

Both of these presumptions may readily be rebutted and by this we mean that the deeds/register may exclude the ownership to the middle of the road.

In the example posted the road is unadopted so no issue over the ownership of the road's surface being owned/maintained by the council

So that leaves the issue of whether it is presumed to be owned by the properties either side of it as mentioned. If the registers are silent on this and/or any rights of way over the road for example then it is likely that the legal presumption has not been rebutted so the ownership could be viewed as being shared.

This is how the law is likely to view such things and is perhaps why, if that was the case when the OP bought the property, no issues were raised re whether the property had a right of way over the road etc and why the residents have formed an assoc to look after the road.

I mention the above legal presumptions simply to highlight what may be available should you or the residents assoc consider going down the road (no pun intended) of legal action to secure the involvement of all residents - before doing so though it is worth checking what their titles refer to and of course getting legal advice around how the law views such matters.

josswallace

My understanding of the current legislation is that the council do have an obligation to repair an unadopted road if it gets to the state where it is dangerous. They also have the right to recalim any costs from the frontages.

My main concern is how to find out what the options are for getting the road made up and getting everyone to contribute.

cattermole

Personally I think the chances of getting any Council to adopt a road in the present climate are pretty slim. They just do not have the money. What constitutes dangerous? If your car gets damaged because you drive over a pothole is that a danger to anyone but the car?

In our area, all new builds and roads are not being adopted like they used to be on quite large Estates, all being set up under management charges - probably a recipe for disaster for the future if and when some people don't contribute to said charges.

Did this not get picked up when you were purchasing the property through your Solicitor?

moneyistooshorttomention

josswallace wrote: »

My understanding of the current legislation is that the council do have an obligation to repair an unadopted road if it gets to the state where it is dangerous. They also have the right to recalim any costs from the frontages.

My main concern is how to find out what the options are for getting the road made up and getting everyone to contribute.

My understanding is that Councils could, in theory, repair the road and bill the residents - but are unlikely to do so in practice (even if wasn't possible to find out which resident had put them up to it in the first place:cool:). Cash-strapped Councils (and some of them are positively "poor as church mice") aren't going to want to land themselves with having to upkeep a road they can get away with leaving as unadopted.

It's no skin off their nose as to what standard a road is at if it isn't theirs.

**************

However - on another tack. That being the one of getting everyone to contribute - first and foremost its necessary to do things "properly". That being that every single household counts as one (equal) stakeholder. Obviously that is regardless of the number of people actually in that household (so bigger households cant "throw their weight around" by force of numbers - but have to accept they still only count as one vote per house).

NO "over the garden wall chats" between one or two particular householders who are friendly with each other. There should be proper meetings - with notice in writing of them (even if the road is too small to warrant a fully set-up Residents Association as such) and "minutes" of some description circulated in writing to everyone in the road subsequently. If the residents as a whole make a decision to spend money on repairs etc of the road - then everyone gets a letter enclosing the written quotations obtained from appropriate number of firms (ie 3 - and anyone's "mate" wishing to do it submits a proper quotation in the appropriate manner and doesn't get favoured over others) and stating which one was chosen/why it was them and given adequate notice of monies due in advance (eg a month at least).

Those are my first thoughts as to how these things should be done "properly" - and I live in an unadopted road. Hence much thought given as to how things should be done - as compared to how they actually are done in some roads.

josswallace

Our road is unadopted bu it connects with council adopted roads. If a pedestrian breaks a leg using our road to get to a council maintained road then if its a right of way from one part of the council maintained roads to another I am not sure if the council can ignotre its stae. I believe council's "Street Works" are authorised to look at tgis sort of situation.

moneyistooshorttomention

josswallace wrote: »

Our road is unadopted bu it connects with council adopted roads. If a pedestrian breaks a leg using our road to get to a council maintained road then if its a right of way from one part of the council maintained roads to another I am not sure if the council can ignotre its stae. I believe council's "Street Works" are authorised to look at tgis sort of situation.

Even on that scenario - I would think that the Council wouldn't be involved in the slightest. The person that had been careless enough to break their leg (ie rather than taking responsibility for watching where they were going) would be due to contact road-owner directly if they wanted to Go 21st Century and Sue about it. Again - no responsibility falling on the local Council. So - even if there wasn't one specific Road Owner and it fell due to everyone living in the road - it would still be the case the Council wasn't involved.

bouicca21

OP might find this useful
https://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN00402.pdf