Taking legal action against property developer

AdrianC

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

It wouldn't have cost the solicitor more than 60 seconds of their time to verbally say to their client "You do realise there is the possibility that lorries delivering to that shop might use the road? This might bother you - in view of the fact you are having to pay towards maintaining the road (as these huge lorries do exert extra 'wear and tear' on road surfaces). Also they might be sitting there in the road for a while - as they unload".

Job done and it didn't take two shakes of a lambs tail to say that.

The solicitor has never visited the site, remember?

Gorideb4

Timings as follows:

Mid 2011 investor sold to developer. At this point land was split, with shop and forecourt remaining in hands of investor. Access deeds and new site plan are included in the transfer TP1.

Houses built between mid 2011 and mid 2012.

Jan 13 we buy our house

March 13 current shopkeeper buys shop, they were however running the shop sometime beforehand perhaps as managers.

Gorideb4

Worth also saying, on the site plan included in the TP1 (when land was split) there is a clearly defined delivery bay shown on the forecourt. Additional parking bays were added at the front of the shop to accommodate this.

tunnel

You seem to be in a no win situation, the drivers blame the shopkeeper and the shopkeeper blames the drivers, it'll likely never go away and the bills will keep coming

Personally I'd sell up(and take a hit if necessary) and get away from it all, just put it down to experience, your blood pressure will thank you!!

da_rule

Something that might be worth asking that I cannot see a definitive answer to in this post is who owns the land? If you just forget about the road and see it as being a parcel of land on which a road happens to exist, there must be an actual owner. As I see it there are 3 options:

1) The land belongs equally to all of the residents (potentially including the owner of the shop). They are responsible for arranging the maintenance and paying the relevant amount each.

2) It belongs to the the developer (or more likely a management company that they have now appointed). They carry out the work and invoice the parties accordingly.

3) It belongs to the person who sold the land to the developer (or their successor in title). My money is probably on this option as the deeds make reference to the land being 'retained'. Therefore the land could belong to the shop owner if he is the successor in title to the original seller, or it could still belong to the original seller.

On a side note about the conveyancer. Assuming that the OP doesn't have a proprietary interest in the road (that is to say they don't own it) then the solicitor would only have been checking for rights that would cause issues to the OP's land. They would've checked that they can access the property - yes they have a right to use the road. Then they would've checked for anything that adversely affected the property - the fact you have to pay to maintain the road. As the road, based on my (potentially incorrect) assumption, would not belong to the OP, his solicitor would not have had any reason to dig that much into it.

davidmcn

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

It wouldn't have cost the solicitor more than 60 seconds of their time to verbally say to their client "You do realise there is the possibility that lorries delivering to that shop might use the road? This might bother you - in view of the fact you are having to pay towards maintaining the road (as these huge lorries do exert extra 'wear and tear' on road surfaces). Also they might be sitting there in the road for a while - as they unload".

Job done and it didn't take two shakes of a lambs tail to say that.

Lambs tails have nothing to do with the definition of professional negligence. And if a client of mine was buying a property next to an already existing commercial property, I'd assume they'd be aware of the possibility of disturbance by the neighbour's business. The solicitor has no idea of timing of deliveries, size of lorries etc, whereas their client has been there.

Gorideb4

da_rule wrote: »

Something that might be worth asking that I cannot see a definitive answer to in this post is who owns the land? If you just forget about the road and see it as being a parcel of land on which a road happens to exist, there must be an actual owner. As I see it there are 3 options:

1) The land belongs equally to all of the residents (potentially including the owner of the shop). They are responsible for arranging the maintenance and paying the relevant amount each.

2) It belongs to the the developer (or more likely a management company that they have now appointed). They carry out the work and invoice the parties accordingly.

3) It belongs to the person who sold the land to the developer (or their successor in title). My money is probably on this option as the deeds make reference to the land being 'retained'. Therefore the land could belong to the shop owner if he is the successor in title to the original seller, or it could still belong to the original seller.

On a side note about the conveyancer. Assuming that the OP doesn't have a proprietary interest in the road (that is to say they don't own it) then the solicitor would only have been checking for rights that would cause issues to the OP's land. They would've checked that they can access the property - yes they have a right to use the road. Then they would've checked for anything that adversely affected the property - the fact you have to pay to maintain the road. As the road, based on my (potentially incorrect) assumption, would not belong to the OP, his solicitor would not have had any reason to dig that much into it.

The road is owned equally by the five houses. The shop doesn't own it but has right of way as their residence is located in our street. This is attached to the shop.

moneyistooshorttomention

AdrianC wrote: »

The solicitor has never visited the site, remember?

But they should have read the deeds/studied the plans/etc.

moneyistooshorttomention

Gorideb4 wrote: »

Worth also saying, on the site plan included in the TP1 (when land was split) there is a clearly defined delivery bay shown on the forecourt. Additional parking bays were added at the front of the shop to accommodate this.

Still think your best angle is to tackle this from the "not meeting planning permission given" angle. You'd better hurry to get that one in before you get to whatever length of time might be applicable before the situation is "glued in stone" (think it's 7 years???).

Cakeguts

Gorideb4 wrote: »

The road is owned equally by the five houses. The shop doesn't own it but has right of way as their residence is located in our street. This is attached to the shop.

That doesn't mean that they have right of way for deliveries to the shop it only means that they have a right of way to their residence. The fact that the shop is attached doesn't mean that the shop has a right of way. Only the residence of the shop owner.