Help please! Rear Access to property

jackjassiek

The searches result of the property we are going to buy showed that

Road and public rights of way
Highways maintainable at public expense
-The road in front of the property - Adopted.
-Rear access – Unadopted

I am curious about rear access.
This is strange because when I viewed the property, there is a garden behind that belongs to this property. (as drawn in In the official copy of register of title)
There are fences in every side of this property without any gate to open.
There seems to be no access way or no rear access at all.
The neighbour/ the property behind also has a garden. (the back of garden of this property and back of neighbour's garden confronts each other without any gate to open/ no road in between both gardens)

My question : What does Rear access - Unadopted means?

Does this automatically mean private access to the property by others or can it mean anything else ?
:j
Thanks a lot for your help in advance
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moneyistooshorttomention

If I saw that written - then I'd conclude that, once upon a time, there used to be a gate in your back fence. That gate being used for rear alley access - eg for dustbins.

If you don't actually require rear access yourself on the one hand or there's nothing written down about paying towards maintenance of rear path on the other hand = I wouldnt bother myself.

Basically, as I understand the law, then paying towards maintaining an unadopted access way of any description is something that is only enforceable on the first owner of a property. After that - it's only enforceable on subsequent owners if they actually use that access (summat to do with a covenant? not automatically passing on down to subsequent owners).

In your position - I wouldnt worry myself about it either way. Your only cause for concern could possibly be if you decided to put a gate back into your back fence and use that access way AND there was something in writing in your house "deeds" saying about an obligation to pay towards maintaining that access path (which I doubt).

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

There isn't a rear access lane. That's the point.

I would guess that it comes up as unadopted simply because there isn't anything adopted, because there isn't anything at all - it's somebody else's garden. That would be a guess though.

davidmcn

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

There isn't a rear access lane. That's the point.

Or possibly it looks on the map that there is a rear access lane - if it is, it isn't adopted. If it doesn't actually exist, it doesn't matter. The search result doesn't imply anything about what the title deeds say.

moneyistooshorttomention

Guess the other possibility is a rear access lane does exist - but this house and the others nearby have all changed the position of their fences and land-grabbed various different bits of the lane and hence it no longer appears to exist.

jackjassiek

Thanks so much everyone!! Thank you for your time too.
I appreciate all of your helpful advice!!!


The meaning of rear access - unadopted is much clearer for me now. : D

Davesnave

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Guess the other possibility is a rear access lane does exist - but this house and the others nearby have all changed the position of their fences and land-grabbed various different bits of the lane and hence it no longer appears to exist.

Or, the rear pedestrian access lane no longer serves any useful purpose, but is seen as a security risk by residents, so they decide together to take possession of it.

I used to find my rear access lane really useful, because it knocked a full 5 minutes off the walk into town, but others who didn't see that advantage, removed their gates and put up 6' fences covered with roses and similar burglar-deterring plants.

Quite ironic, as almost a decade on, that road still has a very low incidence of crime. There again,there's probably even fewer people who walk anywhere!

moneyistooshorttomention

Davesnave wrote: »

Or, the rear pedestrian access lane no longer serves any useful purpose, but is seen as a security risk by residents, so they decide together to take possession of it.

I used to find my rear access lane really useful, because it knocked a full 5 minutes off the walk into town, but others who didn't see that advantage, removed their gates and put up 6' fences covered with roses and similar burglar-deterring plants.

Quite ironic, as almost a decade on, that road still has a very low incidence of crime. There again,there's probably even fewer people who walk anywhere!

Logical in that sense.

But I hope they asked your permission to remove your Right of Way - ie that access on your lane.

Davesnave

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Logical in that sense.

But I hope they asked your permission to remove your Right of Way - ie that access on your lane.

You frequently read more than is there.

The access still exists. The people who bought our house still use it. Others put up fences on their land to shut it off from their gardens.

As you know, no one can remove a right of way without total agreement from all parties.