Private Road to public highway.

Libra1975

The house we are attempting to buy is on a private unmade road. At the end of the road is a largish plot of land which developers are trying to get their hands on to build 10 houses. However to get to that land you have to drive on the private unmade road. How could the developers get their hands on this road and make it public? Apparently each house owner owns the strip of unmade road in front of their house. I have googled this but not come up with anything useful so far!

diesel9181

if they bought the land would they have right of access and then be able to do what they want?

benood

What is the access to the largish plot of land at the moment? Perhaps the owner already has a right of way over the private road.

Libra1975

The access is the private road so yes I guess the owner would have right of way, I just wondered if that would extend to 10 new houses?
The road is not even tarmaced and I don't think would cope with the traffic from another 10 families but I'm not sure if that would be taken into consideration or not.

Ticklemouse

I don't know the legalities of it all but to let you know that I live on an unadopted/private road (we can't find out which it is) Our road has a hedge in the middle, thereby making it 2 culs-de-sac. However, each half of the road has aother cul-de-sac running off it and both these roads are adopted. It just means that they have to drive over "our" road to access their house. There's no problems with access, except to say that when the private road needs resrfacing then the people who live on the adopted roads are expected to make a payment towards it. It isn't as much as the people who live on the unadopted road, but usually about 50%.

All I know is that each house on our road owns up to the centre of the road so I don't know if anyone could buy it (save a compulsory purchase order from the council I suppose) We would rather have an unadopted road which we have to maintain it than have the council open it up as it woud become a massive rat run (.... and the house prices would plummet )

soappie

Libra1975 wrote: »

The house we are attempting to buy is on a private unmade road. At the end of the road is a largish plot of land which developers are trying to get their hands on to build 10 houses. However to get to that land you have to drive on the private unmade road. How could the developers get their hands on this road and make it public? Apparently each house owner owns the strip of unmade road in front of their house. I have googled this but not come up with anything useful so far!

Step away from the purchase!
Step away from it NOW!

This is the stuff of nightmares. :eek:

Unless you have deep pockets.

Visit the garden law website forums (just google gardenlaw UK and you'll find it). There's lots of info on there which will show just what horrors this situation can be.

Johnhowell

My girlfriends house is on a private road, which has about a dozen houses on it. The road is no more than a gravel track. Each property pays £100 a year into a pot to maintain the "road" As a highway designer I would like to see it rebuilt to adoptable standard - but that will not happen any time soon...

Lots of housing estate roads are unadopted, some even private. Some roads that were suppose to be adopted are not yet - after many years, because the developer does not complete the procedures to adoption.

Check the deeds to see the conditions for the road.

If a developer wants to develope a parcel of land that has access rights over the road, then you could "force" the developer to improve the road to adoptable standard so you will not object to their Planning Application.

John

Debt_Free_Chick

Libra1975 wrote: »

The access is the private road so yes I guess the owner would have right of way, I just wondered if that would extend to 10 new houses?

Apparently each house owner owns the strip of unmade road in front of their house.

Who owns what and who has access rights is the key thing here.

Taking your bit of the road ... will you actually own a physical part of it? Do the deeds state this?

If so, then the deeds should also show a covenant, whereby you give access over your bit of the road to others - it should be clear who the others are. This would be the crucial wording as it often names a person, but then goes on to include their "successors" which are all the people who follow on as the property owners, from the original named person.

I think it's more likely that the whole road is owned jointly by all the property owners - but the actual position will be set out in your deeds.

To give you some clear pointers, we need to know what the deeds say about the road. Your solicitor should also give you clear advice on this before you exchange - although you may need to pay extra fees if it's complex.

tonycosgrove

I lived in a private road for twelve years.Life was unbearable at times, never again.

In theory you own the road in practice you have no rights unless of course you have deep deep pockets to fight endless legal battles.

In my particular case it was parking problems.Members of the public and other nieghbours would simply park where they wanted and they knew that you could basically do nothing about it despite being the legal owner of the part of the road they were parking on.

If you called the police they would simply tell you it was a 'civil matter' and would only become involved if someone actually broke the law ,breech of the peace for example.

As someone else said,step away.

Libra1975

Debt_Free_Chick wrote: »

Who owns what and who has access rights is the key thing here.

Taking your bit of the road ... will you actually own a physical part of it? Do the deeds state this?

If so, then the deeds should also show a covenant, whereby you give access over your bit of the road to others - it should be clear who the others are. This would be the crucial wording as it often names a person, but then goes on to include their "successors" which are all the people who follow on as the property owners, from the original named person.

I think it's more likely that the whole road is owned jointly by all the property owners - but the actual position will be set out in your deeds.

To give you some clear pointers, we need to know what the deeds say about the road. Your solicitor should also give you clear advice on this before you exchange - although you may need to pay extra fees if it's complex.

I d/l the deed for the house from the land registry and from that it looks like we actually own the part of land in front of the house that makes up part of the road.
Will question my solicitor, thanks.

paddy's_mum

Google McMeekin v Long for just how difficult this situation could so easily become, and remember that your seller will not be inclined to give you a rebate if things go downhill in years to come.

The same case is also a sharp reminder of why sellers should always answer the Sellers Property Information Form truthfully. I too would advise you to find another property, one that doesn't have the potential to become a nightmare.