Road maintained by the council but not public

finnemo

Good afternoon, 
I would like to ask for an advice.
We are in the middle of purchasing a house and we need an access over a back road to the house, our solicitor said that his searches have found out that this road is maintained by the council but it is not a public highway and therefore the property we are purchasing does not have a Right of Way over this road.
My question is how can road be maintained by council ( I assume at public expense) and not being public?
Thank you for your advice / help on this issue.

molerat

What does the road give access to apart from the back of your house ?  There are lots of things maintained at public expense that the public do not have right of access to.

davidmcn

Councils, like any other landowner, can have private roads on their land over which there isn't necessarily a public right of way.

Which doesn't really answer the question of whether there is any other argument that the house benefits from a right of way over the back road - but that's a question to ask your solicitor.

finnemo

There are houses on each side of the road all the way, with pavements on both side and street lights. It looks like it could have been a council estate in the past.

finnemo

To road gives an access to a private cul de sac road with houses on the sides of the cul de sac.

eddddy

finnemo said:

There are houses on each side of the road all the way, with pavements on both side and street lights. It looks like it could have been a council estate in the past.

So perhaps it was built as a "council estate", and the council decided that the road should only be used by residents, so they didn't make it a public highway.

Are there signs at the entrance to the road saying "Residents Only" or similar?

If it's something like the above, I'd guess you could probably get away with occasional access (e.g. to deliver a shed to your back garden), but the residents of the road might complain, if you do it too often. 

finnemo

Thank you for your answer Edddy. There is a street signage on the road but no sign saying "Residents only", just the name of the street. It is probably like you are saying that the council decided that the road should be used by the residents only. It is a bit strange to me that the road is maintained at public expense but only the residents have the right of way over it and not the public. But I guess that is something that the council can do. 

frogglet

If it's a cul de sac how would you get access to your back garden? Surely there are houses all round it?

finnemo

Our back garden is facing the private cup de sak and we have Right of way over it(confirmed by land register) and this cul se sak is leading to this road which is maintained by council but we've been told by solicitors that we don't have the Right of way over it.