Question for Land Registry Rep, please

Another_Mr_Smith

When I bought my house (in England) it came with a vehicle-and-pedestrian right of way over my neighbour's drive. This is the only access between my house and the street.

My deeds state that I am responsible for 40% of any driveway repair costs, and his deeds state that he is responsible for 60%.

Later my neighbour sold off part of his land to a developer, who built houses there. These houses use the same driveway for access and also have responsibility for paying 40% of any repair costs. My neighbour said that he would have the deeds of his house and my house altered to change the percentages, but then sold his house without doing so.

The person who bought his house believes that my % should now be 24% of the total, i.e. 40% of their % responsibility. They are amenable to having this changed on my deeds and theirs, but their solicitors don't seem to know how to go about this.

What action/documentation would the Land Registry require from us to make this change to our two lots of deeds, please? We both own our property outright, without mortgages.

moneyistooshorttomention

How many houses in total use this road? (ie including the owner of the road).

When you say "houses" have been built there - then I'm tending to assume you mean two houses? Is that correct?

I am puzzled as to why you would have been due to pay 40% originally? Does this mean that the road-owner house has some extra "road" to their house that they use - but you don't?

Land_Registry

Any variation to the clauses of the original Transfer would need to be made by way of a legal deed, namely one made between and executed by the affected parties.
That deed would then be registered against the relevant titles to reflect the agreed variations

eddddy

Another_Mr_Smith wrote: »

They are amenable to having this changed on my deeds and theirs, but their solicitors don't seem to know how to go about this.

That sounds a little bit like you're being fobbed off with a ridiculous excuse.

I'm probably being too cynical - but is the developer being amenable whilst he plays for time, and gets the houses built and sold? Then walks away without changing the deeds.

In fact, isn't that the same 'trick' your former neighbour played on you?


But TBH, if there isn't any legal reason why the shares of maintenance costs have to be changed - I'm not sure why your neighbour would volunteer to take on a bigger share of the costs.

Another_Mr_Smith

Thank you for all the replies.

Land Registry Rep., thank you. I will tell my neighbour this and perhaps we can use my solicitor to sort out the new deed instead of theirs.

Moneyistooshorttomention, there is a terrace of four new houses, so there are now six houses using the same drive. The drive was sort of Y-shaped, one arm leading to my house and one to my neighbour's, with the stem of the Y the shared bit. But it now has an extra arm leading to the new houses. I don't know why it was 60%:40% originally.

Eddddy, knowing the firm of solicitors the new owner uses, it's probably not just an excuse!! The developer doesn't come in to the deal. It's between the new owner of the original house, and me. And it's beneficial to both him and me. At the moment the new owner is responsible for 60%, I'm responsible for 40%, and the new houses are responsible for 40%, total 140%. We want to change the total to 100%, which will mean: New owner 36%, me 24%, new houses 40% (10% each). That's still generous to the new houses, but I think when the land was sold it wasn't known how many houses would be built there. And they are very tiny little terraced houses, without gardens, while ours are detached houses with gardens.