Shared lane

Kimpop

Hi everyone, We are currently searching for a new home. We want to move into the country and have found a beautiful home, in beautiful surroundings with a beautiful view. It's in the exact location that we would love to live. The only thing that's slightly putting us off is the shared lane. It's shared with other houses and a farm so there is cars and tractors going up and down the lane, that's not the problem though. The problem is the lane itself. It's a bone rattler, it's one of the worst lanes I've been on. I'm worried about repairing and maintaining the lane and the costs involved. Would we even be allowed to do anything with the lane? From the house to the roadside it would be at least 100feet long so we couldn't afford a full fix even if we were allowed to do anything.
I'm just wondering if anyone has had an experience of buying a home on a shared lane and what have you done with maintainence etc? Thanks for reading and any advice would be gratefully received

G_M

It all depends

* who owns the lane
* who is responsible for arranging its maintenance
* who is responsible for paying for its maintenance
* whether you'd consider switching to a nice Land Rover Defender

moneyistooshorttomention

You need to establish:

- what proportion of road maintenance costs would be paid by each house

- what arrangements there are about how the households make their decision together about whether any work needs doing/who will arrange it if so/etc. There may not be any.

- see if there is any work at all currently in mind to be done to that road

- establish whether there is a known owner to the road or no and, if so, who it is. If there is a known owner - do they expect to just tell other households what to do or will it be communal decision-making

AdrianC

You want to move to the country, but are worried about a lane that's not smooth...?

Let's have a look at a pic of it, then, see exactly how bad it is.

smallholdingsister

It is a problem. Who owns it?

AdrianC

smallholdingsister wrote: »

It is a problem. Who owns it?

Who knows?
Does it matter?

Many of these shared access lanes - including the one heading to three houses and our back gate - have unknown ownership. The residents who share it simply maintain it between them.

That maintenance is rarely onerous - just chuck a bag of gravel into the bigger holes every now and then.

glasgowdan

I don't imagine shared maintenance of a lane would become a major issue in your life. Perhaps you're overthinking it. Ignore that and make an offer.

00ec25

as GM says, you may, or may not be purchasing a share of the ownership and/or maintenance liability for the lane

until you establish the actual position, stories of other people's experience won't help you.

We had a lane near here where it was deliberately left unmade to discourage use, much to the disgust of the only "incomer" living on it. Took 35 years for enough people to die, and attitudes thus change, before it was finally made up "properly" as the incomer could not pay for all the work alone and the "originals" refused.

The_Real_Cheddar_Bob

i have a shared lane with three others, the only ownership we could find is of a dead family.

no one else has responsibility. consequently you would think it would be in rag order, but nope its tickity boo.

go ahead, dont let this put you off

EachPenny

Kimpop wrote: »

I'm just wondering if anyone has had an experience of buying a home on a shared lane and what have you done with maintainence etc? Thanks for reading and any advice would be gratefully received

You should have specified that you needed advice from people living in a home on a shared lane used by agricultural vehicles (probably HGV's too). These have an altogether different impact on the life expectancy of any road than the occasional passage of private cars. A modern tractor can easily 'eat' a bag of gravel in a single pass :shocked:

You should find out about the ownership and maintenance arrangements for the lane and then decide whether it is worth it to live in this house you like

moneyistooshorttomention

It would be useful in that case to know exactly what the road surface of this particular road is - ie standard tarmac done to a decent standard, tarmac done to a "lesser road" standard, gravel, etc.

? Possibly helpful to know just how much use is made of it by tractors and HGV's? Now I've moved to a semi-rural area I can appreciate there are tractors and tractors. I was still picturing something pretty small/human-size and I expect you are picturing something not much bigger than a car? Well - they're still around - but I've realised there are also massive great tractors these days that tower over people in size and they must "weigh a ton". You don't look at them - you look up at them.

Re ownership - it's probably better if there isn't a known owner. Then everyone will be acting together co-operatively. If there is a known owner then they may be trying to tell the others what to do and refusing to act co-operatively.