Worrying historic ownership

treecol

We are in the early stages of purchasing a property near where we live. While we wait for the title deeds to come from land registry (which we ordered ourselves before using our solicitor as 4 people have pulled out of the purchase of the house) we wonder what your thoughts are on what the deeds say?
We haven't seen the wording yet, but whoever owns the house also owns the roads, pavements & grass verges in an area of 8 acres around the property. It isn't a covenant, but some kind of historical attachment to the house. It used to be the gatehouse for a bigger house, long since sold off separately. The 8 acres of roads etc are now all built on (bungalows with 3rd acres plots) we live on one of the plots currently. I realise it's hard without the exact wording (I'll post as soon as I get the deeds)but the lady at the land registry said the owner is liable for all maintenance to said roads, pavements & verges. Yikes!
So I've emailed the county council to see what they say (highway searches) but what are your initial thoughts & has anyone had experience of this scenario?
Thank you in advance.

bouicca21

My lease says there is a similar covenant about maintaining the road. But that requirement is obsolete as the council adopted the road some 50 years ago.

Cheeky_Monkey

I would've thought that it's pretty obvious that that's exactly why the previous 4 purchasers pulled out.

Eight acres of roads, pavements and grass verges :eek: IMO that would be a huge responsibility, not least of all financial

Cakeguts

If you live in one of the plots now what does it say about the maintenance of your road in your current deeds? If it says you live on a private road maintained by the house you are trying to buy then that is the answer but if it says that your road is adopted by the local council then you need to find out if the council accepts the maintainance of it.

ReadingTim

Cheeky_Monkey wrote: »

I would've thought that it's pretty obvious that that's exactly why the previous 4 purchasers pulled out.

Eight acres of roads, pavements and grass verges :eek: IMO that would be a huge responsibility, not least of all financial

Presumably though, some of that financial responsibility could be passed on to other living on said 8 acres? Including the OP...

So if this hasn't happened, and/or the OP hasn't seen any evidence that the owner of the gatehouse is doing anything about their so-called responsibility, then it's highly unlikely that's gonna change if the OP buys the place.

Furthermore, it's all irrelevant if the council has adopted the roads anyway.

If you're worried about this bit of historical trivia, then you should probably also be practising archery on the village green every Sunday after church, as I don't think that law's been repealed either...

cjmillsnun

I know in Hampshire you can check if a rod has been adopted by the Council. It may be worth seeing if your county council has adopted the local roads, which may mean that the details in the deeds isn’t an issue. In my deeds there was something similar about a shared responsibility with Portsmouth Corporation (now Portsmouth City Council) as my house was bought before Hampshire county council adopted the road. However that condition doesn’t apply now.

Cheeky_Monkey

Well, there's obviously something going on with the property otherwise four purchasers wouldn't have pulled out. That's a lot and not exactly a good sign.

ReadingTim

Cheeky_Monkey wrote: »

Well, there's obviously something going on with the property otherwise four purchasers wouldn't have pulled out. That's a lot and not exactly a good sign.

The question is whether it's 'going on' in reality, or merely in the fevered imaginations of those prospective purchasers...

The OP could get a bargain if they're comfortable that the risk of 'something bad happening' is as remote and ill-defined as it sounds....

moneyistooshorttomention

When it says that these houses own the roads - then I would want to clarify personally exactly what bit of road house x owned and what bit of road house y owned etc etc out of this.

I would think it most likely that each house just owned the section of road they are "frontager" to (ie the bit of road in front of their own house only - and extending out to the halfway point on the road). Which would, in the event, leave most of the road and all surrounding areas not owned by these houses at all - and ownership (therefore responsibility) still residing presumably with the original Big House.

That would seem more likely than x number of houses all jointly owning the road between them and, say for example, 1 mile of road divided between 8 houses meaning each house was responsible for paying for one-eighth of the total bill iyswim.

G_M

It seems highly unlikely (though I admit a possibility) that the financial burden of maintenance would fall on the owner of the house in question.

More likely
* the roads are now adopted by the council, or
* the owners of the houses served by the roads each have a liabilityy to contribute financally to the maintenance (thhough the property owner may have to manage the work involve andd collect the wads of cash).

In either case, your current ownership of one of these properties would provide you with the answer.

What exactly are you waiting for? Not the property Title, as this can be downloaded instantly from the Land Registry. So I assume some supplementary Conveyance or Deed? Does the Title documnet not specify the liability, at least in brief?

Doozergirl

This really is what solicitors are for. Unless you’re qualified to interpret and check these things, it’s just a worry. This can be the first thing you ask your solicitor to look at, before searches etc if you like, but I doubt you’re in a position to make an educated decisiin wither way right now.

I’m very much with ReadingTim’s thinking that things have long since been changed or that they can be altered now by the vendor’s solicitor. There’s rarely a truly exciting and devaluing anomaly.

Indemnity policies also have a wonderful way of making these random historical covenants etc go away.