Visibility splay on front garden

anne_stroud

Hi, we are in the process of buying a house which was advertised with a front and back garden, both in the brochure and on rightmove.  We have just found out from querying the drawing of the boundary on the Land Registery document, that the front garden does not actually belong to the house, but to the origional builders, as it has a visibility splay.  We feel very anxious and annoyed about this as the front garden was part of the advertisement of the house.  We're paying "top money" for this house as it is in the road we want to purchase in, and also we are trying to get house sale/purchase through before 31/03/21.  What advice would you give regarding this.  We still love the house, but the front boundary literally goes straight across the front door.  If we decide to proceed, should we try to negociate a reduction in the house price?  If so, how would you value this? 

AdrianC

How much do YOU value it?

I don't quite see why the vis splay needs the developers to retain a ransom strip, but that ship sailed when the original buyers bought it off them.

Or are you buying from the devs? If so, then you can try to negotiate ownership. If there needs to be a covenant over visibility, I'm sure that won't be an issue.

Of course, the easiest answer is to simply buy a different house.

mrschaucer

What have your solicitors advised about your rights of way/rights of usage etc over the front garden?  Are you expected to maintain it although it belongs to someone else?  Do you own your drive?  

anne_stroud

We are not buying from developers, think there have been two or three owners already since house was built.  I don't know how much value to put on it, but we don't have the front garden that we thought we had with this house, and we are nearvous if this issue will have impact when we try to sell later on.  I'm assuming visibility splays are quite commonplace, but to be honest we never heard of it before..

anne_stroud

We would own most of the drive, but the visibility splay does come across the end of it.  The current owners have tended this garden as if it was theirs, and aparently forgot that they didn't own it when they advertised the house for sale.

mrschaucer

anne_stroud said:

We would own most of the drive, but the visibility splay does come across the end of it.  The current owners have tended this garden as if it was theirs, and aparently forgot that they didn't own it when they advertised the house for sale.

So are you saying there is a strip between "your" drive and the road which someone else owns?  And the boundary of your house is the front door?  You need to check your access rights both vehicular and on foot very carefully.  Tending the garden is the least of your problems!

mrschaucer

And I should say that this issue will indeed impact on future buyers.

anne_stroud

Yes there is also a small strip of the drive that we would not own.  I believe access is not an issue.  On the documents we have now received from the 1st Land Registery entries, it states that the Highways were to purchase these bits of land, but it doesnt look as if they ever did, and they belong to the builders

davidmcn

anne_stroud said:

Yes there is also a small strip of the drive that we would not own.  I believe access is not an issue.  On the documents we have now received from the 1st Land Registery entries, it states that the Highways were to purchase these bits of land, but it doesnt look as if they ever did, and they belong to the builders

It does sound like they were never intended to form part of the garden - have previous owners just adopted the area as their own perhaps? Normally with visibility splays I would expect it to be part of your title, but with restrictions about what you can build/plant on them.

princeofpounds

Have the vendors (or their predecessors) enclosed it as their front garden for long enough to have an adverse possession claim on the land?

anne_stroud

This is a snapshot of the document.