Selling house need indemnity issuance?

Em0208

Hi, wondered if anyone could shed some light on this for me. We are selling our house and practically ready to exchange, when Friday our buyers solicitor had an enquiry about access to the back of the garage.
To clarify if you want to park your car in the garage you access it via an alley way off of a road round the back of the house. There are 4 garages down there and all would need to use the alleyway should they wish to park the car in the garage. Our solicitor has said that because it doesn't state in any of the paperwork that we have the right to use this our it is being suggested we take out an indemnity insurance, this would protect our buyers should anyone in the future try and restrict access in some way. We have lived there for 10 years and we have never had any problems and to my knowledge the people that lived there before us didn't have any issues either. We are being quoted £350 to get this insurance which seems very steep as the risk must be minimal if someone tried to restrict access it wouldn't affect just our garage but also 3 of our neighbours! Does anybody know if there is anything else we can do to alay our buyers solicitors concern, as this all seems a little OTT.

Many thanks for your help:)

Mickygg

Indemnity insurance would probably be insisted by the mortgage company assuming not a cash buyer.
Can you dig out your old info when you bought to see whether it was mentioned in that report?

Em0208

Hi, we have had a look at the old deed and land registry docs and can't find anything that refers to it specifically and the people 1 down from us sold last year and never mentioned it. Also on the house we are buying we had to get a chancel indemnity to stop the church from having a claim to any of our land that used to be theirs many years ago but that was only £14 a bit different to £350! Is there not an argument that it should be the buyers cost if they want it like it was ours with the chancel indemnity?

Em0208

Interestingly I have had a look at the gov website and it states that with regards to common ground you can have the right to access it by the way of a prescription. This apparently is whereby if you have used this access for 20 years without being challenged by the land owner it becomes your right to be able to do so. Could this not be the case for us?

G_M

See

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/easements-claimed-by-prescription/practice-guide-52-easements-claimed-by-prescription

Ideally (and certainly to satisfy a mortgage lender, and maybe a cash buyer too) the prescripted right would need to be registered on the Title. This of course will take time and delay your sale.

A buyer might be satisfied even if it's not registered, but would proably want to see evidence of 20 years uninterrupted use. You can provide a 'statutory declaration or statement of truth' for 10 years, but you'd need to get the previous owners to provide a similar 'statutory declaration or statement of truth.'

Who owns the alley? Assuming it's not public highway/adopted by the council, is the land registered? Check the Title for
a) ownership and
b) any rights of access others (you!) might have over it.

Do a map enquiry here.