Victorian Terrace Right of way

sme116

Hi,

I am just looking for some advice.
We live in a row of victorian terraced houses with a small alleyway at the back of us with the next street of houses gardens backing on to it. However, the alleyway has been left to severely overgrow and build up with lots and lots of rubbish and both accesses to the alleyway are blocked off, not that you would be able to walk through it anyway as the overgrowth has got to the height of our fences.

We have lived in the house for 3 years now and have contacted the council who have said they do not own the land (alleyway) so my question is - are we able to extend our garden into the alleyway now that we have spent a month clearing it and paid for a skip to take away all the rubbish. It seems like such a waste of space otherwise and would hate it for it to get that bad again but now that we are re-doing our garden we will no longer have a gate to get into the alleyway to clear it and none of our neighbours have gates to get out there either...

Thanks.

Aylesbury_Duck

The quick answer is no. You can't just acquire someone else's land, even if you have cleared it.

The longer answer is that you can conduct a thorough search into who exactly owns that land and find out if deeds for your houses or those of your neighbour stipulate anything relating to access to it, etc. and then you may be able to acquire it formally.

theartfullodger

Yeah, no problem, simply buy it off the owner. Do you know who they are? Use land registry search function

Cakeguts

Don't forget that even if you make it part of your garden lots of people will still have a right of way over it so they will have the right to walk across the bottom of your garden if they need to.

sme116

Thanks for your help, land registry just has a red line around our house and garden and the same with our neighbours, it doesnt state who if anyone owns the alleyway. We presume it belonged to the council many many years ago but they have said they do not own it or want any responsibility for it so im not sure how else we can find out what to do? If we were to move our fences back by a metre or so, would this be a major problem as no one has accessed the alleyway in at least 15 years where it is so severley overgrown and even if they were to clean it there would still be room for them to walk down the alleyway behind our garden fences. All of the houses replaced their gates with fences many years ago to so have no intention of using it for access. (It took us a month to clear our section of the alleyway alone so i doubt anyone would ever bother to do this)

We just wanted some advice really...

Cakeguts

sme116 wrote: »

Thanks for your help, land registry just has a red line around our house and garden and the same with our neighbours, it doesnt state who if anyone owns the alleyway. We presume it belonged to the council many many years ago but they have said they do not own it or want any responsibility for it so im not sure how else we can find out what to do? If we were to move our fences back by a metre or so, would this be a major problem as no one has accessed the alleyway in at least 15 years where it is so severley overgrown and even if they were to clean it there would still be room for them to walk down the alleyway behind our garden fences. All of the houses replaced their gates with fences many years ago to so have no intention of using it for access. (It took us a month to clear our section of the alleyway alone so i doubt anyone would ever bother to do this)

We just wanted some advice really...

The point is though that they don't have to walk behind your garden fence if the right of way is over the bottom of your garden. You will be unable to prevent someone from exercising this right by walking over the bottom of you garden this is why what you are thinking of doing is a really bad idea.

Just because the council doesn't own it doesn't mean that no one does.

Nobbie1967

This is one of the situations that the law of adverse possession seeks to address to ensure that land is used productively. It is currently of no use to anyone and I suspect you will have trouble trying to buy it, so just fence it and apply for adverse possession in 15 years time. Unless someone objects then it should be yours, if they do object and claim it as their own then you can then offer to buy it.

Aylesbury_Duck

I agree with Cakeguts. You seem to be trying to convince us/yourself that what you're proposing is reasonable. I'm afraid it isn't. If you want to acquire possession of the land, you are going to need to make more enquiries, not just give up when the council didn't claim ownership and use that as reasoning to claim it. Someone owns that land and it will probably cost you time and/or money to establish who. If you do, you may find that they don't want it any more and are happy to sell it or even give it to you but you need to check that formally.

Have a read through some of the threads on here over the years. You will find examples where people have taken unlawful possession of land or had their own land swiped by someone who thought ownership was ambiguous or not determinable. It usually results in upheaval, a nuisance and sometimes, costs.

teddysmum

I was raised in a house like that and our 'backs' (I thought the word was bax) were for public access, so I assume owned or at least maintained by the council, as there were very few weeds except for those growing around grids, which the council did lift to hose the drains. The block paved route was used for bin lorry, coal deliveries and rag-and-bone man carts.

Coal man days are byegones but before that the roads were used several times a week (so my mum told me) bythe 'muckmen' who emptied the pre-flushing toilets over night. (Many old terraced house yards have a blocked up 'window', in an outbuilding or wall,which was used for emptying access. This was in the early 1900s).


The 'backs' to the street I lived in and the surrounding ones are still open, used by bin lorries and weed free, having signs prohibiting parking, which would deny access for other vehicles.

eddddy

One option is that you fence the land, incorporate it into your garden and see what happens...

Possible risks include:

• The owner of the land turns up and tells you to remove your fence from their land

• A neighbour complains that you have narrowed their right of way, and insists that you remove the fence. (Maybe they don't use the right of way now, but want to retain the ability to in the future.)

• When you come to sell your property, there may be a bit of extra 'hassle' when it becomes clear that you don't own part of your garden (and there is a right of way through the garden)

If you use the land as part of your garden for 12 years, you might be able to claim ownership through adverse possession.

moneyistooshorttomention

What you havent said is whether the alleyway is a "through" alleyway (ie shortcut from A to or a dead-end one or both ends.

But I'm with the consensus of opinion that it will remain a Right of Way and people will retain the right to walk over it (whether it is or isnt made into part of your garden).

The constructive way forward on this is to ask ALL the other houses that have this as a back alleyway if they agree that ALL of you on both sides of the alleyway would agree to extend your garden fence/wall out to the middle of the alleyway - so you ALL gain a bit of extra garden and no-one wants (or would ever want in the future) to use it as a Right of Way.

Sounds like you jumped the gun a bit and didnt ask any of the neighbours whether they agreed/would be willing to join in with the alley clearing. So there's a bit of "humble pie" for you to eat now - because you didnt even ask them to join in doing this with you and they will be rather suspicious that you are trying to claim a bit of the alley just for yourself and don't accord them the same "right".