help - Unadopted road house purchase

AMH3

Hello, Im looking for some advice from anyone really, no doubt Im not the only person in this situation.

Im in the process of buying a house, and just found out the road is unadopted and the council wont be adopting it (I assume no sec 38 was submitted and the road doesnt meet the crazy list of requirements imposed by the council) The development is 6yrs old and consists of 12 houses all sharing a small road with driveways off it, road is shorter than the length of a football pitch, and no pavements.

Weve been told a housing management company manage the road HLM, and we are to pay £23 per month for public liability insurance. My initial reaction was that seems steep, as works out over £3000 per year between all the 12 houses.

Does anyone else live in a similar property and is this insurance price the norm? I assume as its for public liability that all other costs for maintaining the road are on top of this.

Can you force the management company to get a more competitive insurance if it is very steep. The house is very nice and Im teetering on the edge of withdrawing from the sale if the whole unadopted road is going to be a problem down the line. Ive searched google and its all horror stories and people saying walk away and dont buy. But hoping for some responses from anyone who has taken the plunge and glad they did as not an issue?

Thanks

marksoton

The PL insurance would be the least of my worries.

What about when this company come to you for funds to maintain/resurface etc the road that runs into £000's.

moneyistooshorttomention

Personally - the house would have to have a lot going for it for me to overlook that sort of bill coming through each month.

....and I live in an unadopted road...

markelock

there is a road a few miles from me (called the Villas in Stoke on Trent) which is unadopted. It's got some of the nicest houses in Stoke and the surrounding area, for example


http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-55796791.html


But the road itself is I suspect similar to a run down African b-road. I guess some companies just don't bother looking after them?

davidmcn

AMH3 wrote: »

Weve been told a housing management company manage the road HLM, and we are to pay £23 per month for public liability insurance. My initial reaction was that seems steep, as works out over £3000 per year between all the 12 houses.

Does anyone else live in a similar property and is this insurance price the norm?

I suspect that the majority of unadopted roads don't have any public liability insurance. That does sound steep, considering that for a fraction of that price you'll get your buildings insurance policy including public liability cover for anything happening on your own driveway etc. But possibly it's the going rate for a standalone policy for a shared road, I don't know.

moneyistooshorttomention

Try asking

www.privateroads.co.uk

as that's part of what they do.

EDIT; Just checked and they've amended their website. It's now possible to get a quick quote by email.

moneyistooshorttomention

Further thought - try googling "public liability insurance private road" and you will come up with several other threads on this forum re this subject.

First one I came to is a 2010 one - and a poster replying stated he thought the road as a whole would come to £250 pa (that's for the whole road). I don't know how accurate - or otherwise he would have been on that price.

What I am wondering is whether the cost of this liability is split equally between the 12 houses. You are assuming it is I guess?

Maybe they all have different length of road frontage to each other? There may be houses that have very little road frontage in front of their personal house and therefore their "responsibility" and others that have a lot of road frontage in front of their house (and therefore their amount of "responsibility" is rather higher). Perhaps the cost to individual houses has been worked out pro rata (based on amount of road frontage they each have thats "theirs")?

It's not unknown for some roads to have just road-owners personal "bits" of road (ie outside their own house) maintained and some of the road is done/some isn't.

Worth checking imo.

hjd

I live in a road of 16 houses which is unadopted. Our total annual charges are currently just over £6,500 for everything, which includes management charges £2,100 and gardening £1,200, so about £34 per property per month.
The building/property owners' insurance comes out at about £500 for the year; there are no communal buildings, just the road, so it is mainly the public liability insurance. We also have directors and officers insurance for £250 annually. I am sure we could get both cheaper.

I think there is a lot of scope to get costs down but most of the other residents are happy to pay the charges and not be bothered.

If your management company is HML Andertons - that's who we have. The service you get totally depends on who you are dealing with. We had a great guy for a couple of years, but his replacement is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. (That assumes she actually exists - we have never seen her and her priorities don't include actually doing her job). I think we are too small a development to get a good service.

AMH3

Yes, Im just assuming its equal share although the house buying is at the end so we have to use the full length of the road others wouldnt. The sewage has been adopted we know that so its the road itself, drains and I assume pipework for water, and supplies must also fall under the responsibility of the residents. Ive been told the housing management firm have an emergency pot but not sure what this covers or the amount as they wont tell me. Didnt want to wait until the solicitor has the paperwork and would have liked this info upfront before making an offer. Maybe Im over complicating the situation and worrying too much, my concern is being stung down the line with g bills or ever increasing management bills each month

AMH3

HJD - from you monthly payment are you then in effect protected from any big bills for road repairs etc or is it a case of if work needs to be done you have to cough up the money between you all ?

moneyistooshorttomention

AMH3 wrote: »

Yes, Im just assuming its equal share although the house buying is at the end so we have to use the full length of the road others wouldnt. The sewage has been adopted we know that so its the road itself, drains and I assume pipework for water, and supplies must also fall under the responsibility of the residents. Ive been told the housing management firm have an emergency pot but not sure what this covers or the amount as they wont tell me. Didnt want to wait until the solicitor has the paperwork and would have liked this info upfront before making an offer. Maybe Im over complicating the situation and worrying too much, my concern is being stung down the line with g bills or ever increasing management bills each month

One of my concerns prior to buying was what happened re cost if water pipes needed fixing. Answer is = same as usual (ie if they're on my property it's down to me and if they arent on my property then it's down to the local Water Authority).

I dont recall the exact name/date of the law when this changed - other than it's in very recent years. Prior to that the cost of dealing with water pipes in unadopted roads would have been a consideration. Subsequent to that = one thinks no more of it than living in a normal road (ie an adopted one).