Access rights - alleyway between terraced houses

AmmDram

Has anyone any experience of selling a mid terraced house with an alleyway between your property and next door? Ours is flying freehold, for which we took out an indemnity policy when we were buying it. Now we are selling the house, our buyer is insistent that we must change the deeds to show 50/50 access rights as apparently it isn’t in writing anywhere that the owners of our house have a legal right to use the passageway (which only leads to our garden and the garden of our neighbours). 

The buyers are threatening to pull out unless we do this. I’m worried about the cost of having to do this and also the timescale involved as we need to complete before the stamp duty holiday window closes. I wasn’t even aware that there could be an issue with access through the passageway, our solicitor never raised it as an issue when we bought the property and we nor the previous owners have ever had any issues. I have discussed it with our current solicitor and know it might take days or weeks for a resolution (then months to execute), so while I’m panicking myself silly about our sale falling through (and onward purchase), has anyone any prior experience of this, please? Is there an easier fix? 

greatcrested

It will take time.

I assume the alley belongs to the neighboring property?

To start with, will the neighbour even agree? How well do you get on with them?

pphillips

Yes - we are buying the same type of property as the one you're selling, our solicitor told us that it's a long and complicated process to get the register amended and so he has asked the seller to effect a title indemnity policy that addresses the defect.

AmmDram

greatcrested said:

It will take time.

I assume the alley belongs to the neighboring property?

To start with, will the neighbour even agree? How well do you get on with them?

When we bought the property, we were told that the neighbours were responsible for the lower half and we are responsible for the upper half (though their bedroom over hangs the alleyway at the front, and our bathroom overhangs it to the back). It didn’t occur to us there could be an issue. We got on fine with our previous neighbours (who moved last year) and fine with the current ones. I have just spoken to our current neighbours and the previous owners had a document drawn up stating that they had never had a problem with access and claiming that right of way has been established. Surely we could do the same? I’m just concerned our buyer might insist on the deeds being changed...

AmmDram

pphillips said:

Yes - we are buying the same type of property as the one you're selling, our solicitor told us that it's a long and complicated process to get the register amended and so he has asked the seller to effect a title indemnity policy that addresses the defect.

Thanks. I’m hoping we can do similar, it’s just the estate agent told me our buyer is insisting we change the deeds! I hope our solicitors can sort it out without needing to amend the deeds. It sounds time consuming, inconvenient and expensive. 

davidmcn

AmmDram said:

pphillips said:

Yes - we are buying the same type of property as the one you're selling, our solicitor told us that it's a long and complicated process to get the register amended and so he has asked the seller to effect a title indemnity policy that addresses the defect.

the estate agent told me our buyer is insisting we change the deeds!

This should be a discussion between the solicitors, why is the estate agent getting involved? They won't have a clue what they're talking about.

hazyjo

Agree with davidmcn, it's more likely to be the buyer's solicitor insisting on it. The EA is prob just confusing things. I doubt the buyer has a clue unless they're familiar with such matters.

greatcrested

I repeat: who does the alley belong to?

If not sure, look at the Titles and Plans for both properties.

princeofpounds

As greatcrested says, look at the title and plans for both properties.

If you own the alleyway, great, you can use it.

If you don't own the alleyway, but either set of deeds grants you an easement (a 'right') to use it, you can use it. It's called a granted easement.

If you don't own the alleyway, and both deeds are silent on your right to use it, but owners of your property have used it for access for 20 years without requiring a license (permission) from the owner, you have an easement by prescription and you can use it. If your neighbours are willing, a statement of fact to this effect should be more than enough evidence. It does not have to be written into the deeds to have full legal force. This is all kind of basic solicitor 101 stuff - tell the EA to tell the buyers to consult with their solicitor.

There are also some slightly more esoteric ways you could have gained an easement, but these are the most common situations.

FtbDreaming

My house is the same style and the land registry drawings didn’t show any alley at first. The solicitor must have seen it on google street view or something because they raised an issue with the flying freehold and asked me what the situation was on the ground so to speak. 

Anyway before completion the land registry document was amended to show the left half of the alley is mine and the right half is next doors. Upstairs their room is over the front half and ours is over the back. It took a few weeks to update but it was done prior to me buying the house. 

AmmDram

Thank you for the responses on this. I did write two lengthy replies yesterday and on pressing ‘post’ each time, they disappeared! At the time of posting yesterday, my solicitor was unavailable so I was just hoping someone here had experienced similar. Yesterday, all I knew was what the EA told me about the issue...

Neither our deeds nor the deeds for next door mentions right of way or ownership of the alleyway. At the end of the day, my solicitor called me back yesterday and informed me our deeds have never featured the bathroom (which overhangs the alleyway). Next door had theirs updated in 1999 to feature their bedroom which  overhangs at the front. I think this is where the issue lies. That, and the EA talking about things she hasn’t got the full picture on. She was insistent the issue the buyer had was about right of way; my solicitor said all they had heard from our buyer’s solicitor was about the flying freehold issue and our bathroom not being on the deeds. I know it isn’t anything to do with the EA and the solicitors should be able to sort it out, but she kept saying it was an ultimatum from the buyer around getting the deeds changed or we would lose our sale. Initially I thought this would have to involve next door and their solicitor too, which made me panic - thinking spiralling costs - but on speaking with my solicitor yesterday, it could be a simple job to get our bathroom (and our portion of the flying freehold) attributed to our property. I don’t know why this didn’t come up when we bought the property. 

Our neighbours showed me a document they had been given by the previous owners - a declaration about right of way/access as neither of us ‘own’ the alleyway. Anyway, my solicitor is going to try and get to the bottom of what our buyer actually wants (having heard conflicting things from the EA) and then we can hopefully sort the whole thing out. Thank you again to those who responded. I know this probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but the EA has confused things!