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Visibility splay on front garden

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  • princeofpounds
    princeofpounds Posts: 10,396 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Yes - what you are buying is contained within those red lines, but an adverse possession claim may be possible on the rest of it. 

    You will need to make your solicitor aware of this, if you haven't already (I presume the plan came from them, but you could have downloaded it yourself which is why I'm making this point).
  • lincroft1710
    lincroft1710 Posts: 18,869 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    I had a similar issue with the first house I bought. Part of the side and front garden belonged to the council (even though a private house) as they wished this to remain as a visibility splay or to widen the road (it was only access to garage blocks, so never going to happen). Never a problem. Myself, previous and successive owners just treated it as if they owned it
    If you are querying your Council Tax band would you please state whether you are in England, Scotland or Wales
  • ProDave
    ProDave Posts: 3,785 Forumite
    Seventh Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    edited 13 January 2021 at 5:00PM
    The visibility splay will have been a planning requirement so traffic can see safely.
    So you can probably enjoy the use of the garden and keep on mowing the grass, but you can't plant anything there which is probably why the developer kept it to be able to enforce that.
    It is a bit of grass on an open plan estate, just what else do you want to do with it other than mow the grass?
    You won't be able to claim adverse possession as it is unfenced and so others can walk on it so you have not had exclusive use of it.
  • 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..
    Doesn’t appear to have put previous owners off, seems like the house does sell and sounds like they’ve all known about this bit of land, even the current owners who had just forgotten to mention it. 
  • greatcrested
    greatcrested Posts: 5,925 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Just do as the current owners have done. Look after it with mowing and planiting of low plants that don't obstruct visibility, and in a year or two you also will have forgotten you do not own it.
  • The sellers solicitor has stated, "if the area has since been incorporated as part of the front garden, then perhaps the buyers would be willing to accept a Statutory Declaration from xxx to that effect".  Our solicitor has said that they've only been there since 2017 and it's a long way off being to claim possessory. She mentioned 10 years, so I'm assuming that's when we could apply to purchase it.  But also it's unlikely that the Highways would sell it to us.  Does anyone know if the Highways ever sell these strips of land to adjacent property owners?  I understand that you cannot grow hedges or put up fence above certain height etc. ...but do they ever sell with that understanding.  And how much £ are we talking about?
  • mrschaucer
    mrschaucer Posts: 953 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 13 January 2021 at 5:30PM
    So does the land belong to the original builders, as earlier stated, or Highways?
    Just thinking that it might be easier if you could buy from the builders and take over their undertakings re permanent visibility responsibilities.
  • anne_stroud
    anne_stroud Posts: 20 Forumite
    10 Posts Second Anniversary
    edited 13 January 2021 at 5:44PM
    It looks like it is still owned by the builders.  I did read on one of the documents ....to be adopted by the local authority.  But maybe it was not in reference to this bit of land.  Those documents are hard to read, and the jargon is not easy for someone not in this area of expertise.
  • It looks like it is still owned by the builders.  I did read on one of the documents ....to be adopted by the local authority.  But maybe it was not in reference to this bit of land.  Those documents are hard to read, and the jargon is not easy for someone not in this area of expertise.
    Ask your conveyancer to explain it to you.
  • davidmcn
    davidmcn Posts: 23,596 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    It looks like it is still owned by the builders.  I did read on one of the documents ....to be adopted by the local authority.  But maybe it was not in reference to this bit of land. 
    "Adopted" just means they'll take on the maintenance responsibility, it doesn't usually mean the underlying title is transferred. Presumably that didn't happen, for whatever reason (perhaps the householder had already "claimed" the area by then and the council were happy not to be cutting more grass than they had to!).
    Those documents are hard to read, and the jargon is not easy for someone not in this area of expertise.
    Which is why you employ people who are in that area of expertise...
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