Responsibility for maintaining road and sewers?

mj2014

A potentially ignorant FTB question....

We’re buying a new build from a small local developer on an estate of about 20 houses. The estate is an extension of a residential development built about 20 years ago. My solicitor has contacted us saying that the transfer of ownership of the land the development is built on has provisions stating that any new owner of the land (i.e. us) has to maintain the new road into the development and the sewers, something that usually applies to the developer and is not supposed to burden the owners of individual plots. There is no mention of a yearly fee or whatever paid by all the residents to maintain these things and we were under the impression there would not be any maintenance fees of any sort that larger new build developments sometimes have. The solicitor has written to the sellers solicitor for clarification, as some of the plots are already completed on and moved into, and my solicitor says their title deeds have the same provisions. A statement from his letter to the sellers solicitor says ‘We are not sure how this was allowed to happen’ which sounds alarming...

I know I just have to wait for the response of the sellers solicitor, but just wondering if there’s any advice on here about such issues which could save me some worrying over the weekend. Is there likely to be a simple resolution to this or just some paperwork the developer hasn’t done yet?

D_M_E

Sounds like the road will remain private and not be adopted by the council.

Could potentially be costly if the road
a) is used by a lot of vehicles owned by the 20 houses and their visitors,
b) acts as a feeder road to the existing larger development.

Also consider the sewers - what do they link into, the sewers for the larger development? Who would pay if the sewer gets blocked by, for example nappies, wetwipes or other sundry items, and how often would people contribute if they continually get blocked?

Listen to what your solicitor is advising, he/she is looking after your interests - my reaction would be to tell him/her to stop all work until their concerns have been satisfactorily addressed and if they cannot be then find somewhere else to buy.

mj2014

Yes it sounds like something that needs to be rectified before we can proceed. Surely the other buyers stumbled across this issue, but there’s people moved in so they either didn’t care or we’re missing something...

What makes councils adopt roads or not? It seems like most councils wouldn’t want the extra cost so the cost is passed onto the developer and then the residents through some sort of maintenance charge? If there isn’t a yearly charge, and the road remains private, if there’s a pothole or something is it just sort of ‘see if anyone’s willing to chip in and fix it and if not we live with it’ sort of thing? As for sewers, I could see problems with that being really expensive and there’s no way we would want to be responsible for that....

It says in the searches that the fouled water drains into a public sewer but that the new drains haven’t been adopted by the water authority yet, I think there’s ‘adoption paperwork’ pending (probably using all the wrong terms here, but hopefully this makes sense).

NeilCr

Are the residents taking on the freehold of the estate? Or is the developer keeping it?

We own our freehold and have a private road which ends in the car park. More properties than yours (45) but it gets no or little damage as traffic is slow and only council waste disposal lorries are heavy. We clean out the gutters - paid from the service charges. It will never be adopted by the council but it really is no hassle. I suspect some roads aren't adopted because of costs, lighting etc

Don't know about sewers though. Ours are adopted by the water authority

Davesnave

Any shared public sewers in this country become the responsibility of the water authority. If they're charging for the service through water rates, they provide it.

mj2014

NeilCr, the residents own the freehold. It is a small road and it’s makes a small cul-de-sac so there’s not through traffic. What sort of yearly charge/costs are reasonable to expect to maintain a road like this? Does it mean the property could be difficult to sell in the future (presuming for now the water/sewer issues get sorted)...?

NeilCr

We have an estate charge of about £500 each per annum. But that's taken up by a lot of more expensive things. Electric gates, management charge, fencing, insurance, lighting, maintaining the grounds etc

Honestly, we have the roadways and gutters cleaned out once a year and change a few lightbulbs. The road has been there 15 years and we have had to do no other maintenance. The surface is finel

Properties sell all the time. I bought mine with the road like it.

I don't know about the sewers but the rest seems pretty normal to me. I know others in the same situation on estates. My ex for example.

ETA.

The only other thing you may want to think about is parking.

That can be a bit contentious - worth a look at the parking forum. We do get a bit of rogue parking on our road. Can be quite annoying and causes friction. Parking controls have been discussed and rejected as they are divisive, too. Your road might be fine so may not be an issue for you. We are, generally, short of parking areas

Davesnave

Assuming the road is properly built, it will be a long time before maintenance is required.

There's a private road I use with my property, surfaced last around 1990. It still looks serviceable, although it's used by vans and tractors daily.

Where I used to live, owners of expensive £1m+ houses deliberately kept their unadopted roads unsurfaced and potholed to dissuade people from using them as rat runs! Perhaps these were old rights of way that couldn't be blocked with gates etc. Anyway, it didn't stop the houses selling for high prices.

jezzer_72

mj2014 wrote: »

What makes councils adopt roads or not? It seems like most councils wouldn’t want the extra cost so the cost is passed onto the developer and then the residents through some sort of maintenance charge? If there isn’t a yearly charge, and the road remains private, if there’s a pothole or something is it just sort of ‘see if anyone’s willing to chip in and fix it and if not we live with it’ sort of thing? As for sewers, I could see problems with that being really expensive and there’s no way we would want to be responsible for that....

The road needs to be built to adoptable standards. The Highway Aurthority (sometimes it’s the city council or county council) will adopt a road that is built to adoptable standards as it’s their statutory duty and won’t adopted a road that isn’t. If it’s not adopted then it probably will never be.

I wouldn’t buy a house on a private road/drive as it’s just additional headache if people refuse to pay to sort issues, the management company goes bust, there is a parking issue and people start claiming parts of the road,
or any money paid appears to go missing (happened to a few people I know who paid into sinking funds with management companies who said there wasn’t any or enough money when issues arose). The fewer people using the private road the better though and it’s a new build so you probably would have moved out before any issues start later down the line.

Equally, many people live on shared roads/drives and have no issues and everyone pays maintenance.

AdrianC

The developer currently owns the unadopted road. The owner of the road pays for the maintenance.

The developer is looking to transfer ownership of the road to the residents. The owner of the road pays for the maintenance.

EachPenny

jezzer_72 wrote: »

The road needs to be built to adoptable standards. The Highway Aurthority (sometimes it’s the city council or county council) will adopt a road that is built to adoptable standards as it’s their statutory duty and won’t adopted a road that isn’t. If it’s not adopted then it probably will never be.

There is no statutory duty for a Highway Authority to adopt a road simply because it has been constructed to adoptable standards.

E.g. the Highways Act 1980 Section 37(2) provides for a test whether a road proposed for [adoption] provides "sufficient utility to the public to justify its being maintained at the public expense".

The owners of a road can ask the Highway Authority to adopt it, and there are several routes to achieve that outcome. But the Highway Authority always maintains an ability to avoid doing so, especially if it isn't in the public interest.

In response to the OP's question, historically councils would adopt roads in new developments because it was easier for them that way. There was also a financial advantage because the total length of road in an authority's area was something that fed into the complex calculations central government did to allocate grant funding. Therefore, adopting brand-new high-spec estate roads that would only get light traffic resulted in a disproportionate increase in grant funding/Supplementary Credit Approval compared to the cost of maintaining the roads actually being adopted.

It was a case of highway authority :money:

More recently, the design of streets in new developments has prioritised people over vehicles, leading to designs which are very expensive to maintain. Cutting silly little bits of grass, and maintaining block paved areas is a drain on revenue budgets and simply not worth the hassle for any possible financial benefit of adoption. It also suits many developers not to build to adoptable standards because it can save construction costs and help squeeze more 'boxes' into the same area of land. Plus it also means an ongoing revenue stream from the owners of the boxes.