Development in Private Lane

unforeseen

Mickey666 said:

"As the developer does not own the lane he can not provide passing places. The distance from the main road to the site entrance is in excess of 200 meters."

When I was researching my responsibilities for the lane I own with ROWs of a few other houses, I read somewhere that a ROW confers the right to 'pass and repass' over said lane but gives no rights to 'improve' the condition of the lane.  Thus, if I decided that a non-tarmac'd, rutted and potholed lane was adequate for me (as owner) then the other properties with ROW over the lane had no right to actually 'improve' the condition of the lane.

In your case this suggested that the developer (or anyone actually) could not 'improve' the lane in order to satisfy any highways objections to the development without the landowner's consent.  Technically.  In practice, of course, the developer might just go ahead and do it anyway (if it helped them with planning consent) on the basis that the unknown landowner is unlikely to suddenly appear and complain.

I don't know if it would be possible, but it might be worth investigating whether your unregistered private road could be 'claimed' by the residents and duly registered as the legal owners at Land Registry.  You could probably make a good case for registered ownership and LR might give 'possessory title', which leaves the door open for the original owner to present their better claim within 12 years, which seems unlikely to happen in this case in which case you could convert to 'title absolute' after 12 years (or maybe 10, I'm not sure).  Would likely need some legal advice, so there will be costs involved, but might be advantageous to all residents in the future.  Just a thought.

Which would have no effect on those residents who do not want to join in. They already have the right to use the road for all purposes and would not be bound by any additional measures such as paying maintenance for upkeep. 
If I was the developer I would welcome the other houses doing this as it would no doubt create additional legal obligations for them which could be a bonus for the developer and his land. 

MoneySeeker1

Mickey666 said:

JMKernow said:

Mickey666 said:

Hi_Fidelity said:

If the 1 house is replaced by 5, would that not reduce the proportion of any maintenance charges for the existing properties? e.g. 6 houses off the lane ...so each house pays 1/6th of the charges. 1 house becomes 5, making 10 in total ... so each house pays 1/10th of the charges.

That would certainly be fair but I think it will depend on the deeds of the existing houses, and in particular the one house soon to become 5 houses.  If their maintenance obligations are quoted as a fixed percentage then I’d not be surprised if the 5 new houses end up dividing that percentage between them.  After all, to legally change the maintenance obligation in the all the deeds would take some time and effort, so why would a developer offer to do that?  Especially if they can sell the five new houses with reduced maintenance costs, which would be an advantage to them wouldn’t it?   The existing houses would not be any worse off, though I suppose they could argue increased costs through increased wear and tear.  

The other thing that strikes me is about the lane ownership.  If there really is no owner (which I doubt), how did the various houses obtain a ROW over it, along with their maintenance obligations, in the first place?

Thanks for the reply and interest.  We have gone to great lengths to find an owner without success. In addition there is no maintenance agreement in place, nor has there ever been. Individual property owners have maintained the surface at their own expense. We understand that we are each responsible for the surface up to the mid point adjacent to our frontages. Our ROWs are historic and have never been questioned with nothing relating to that aspect on any deeds.

Fortunately, my neighbours are friendly and sensible people and we've all agreed to contribute equally, even setting up a 'residents association' to collect a small monthly contribution towards any necessary maintenance.  

I just mention all that as something you might like to consider.  Informal arrangements are all very well while people are friendly and fair-minded but it would only take one or two 'anti-social' residents to buck the system, whereupon there would be no legal obligations to fall back on.

How do you make sure there are safeguards in place to ensure no-one can "run off with" the maintenance money set aside by everyone?

I've often wondered how it's possible for other residents to ensure the "treasurer" in these sort of circumstances can't grab the money for themselves (or have it grabbed by anyone they are in financial schtuck to). As if the money got "grabbed" then the residents could turn round and say, for instance, "We need £2,000 for spending on the road and we know the Association owns the money - so we'll all take it out and pay the bill from it" only to find the Treasurer had run off with it so to say and they'd land up with their money stolen off them (as they'd paid for something and were being blocked from having it - because the money had vanished).

MoneySeeker1

Thanks Mickey - really helpful.

So it sounds like theft could be avoided pretty easily by just requiring a signature per each house involved and, with even one missing signature, the one-who-would-like-to-grab couldn't do so.