Right of Access - Private Road

Hthr

Hi,

I live on a private road with two other houses, and we own the rights to the road. Both houses have a driveway, however one of the houses has taken down their garden fence at the side and it looks as if they would like to create a second driveaway from the road - they have had a significant amount of stone delivered..

As we are the legal owners of the road, i wondered what are our rights in this regard ?

Should they have asked our permission to create a second driveway from the road, and are we able to reject this driveway ?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

casper_gutman

Do you mean that your property owns the land the road passes over, but the occupants of the other houses have access rights over it? Right of access doesn't usually include the right to park/store a vehicle on the land, so this might be an issue. Would parking on their possible "driveway" block access for others over the right of way? This doesn't necessarily change whether they have a right to park there, but might affect how you approach things.

Is the problem the fact that they want to pave (or enclose?) the land so it looks like part of their property, or the fact that they want to use the land differently (e.g. for parking)? Do the deeds say anything about who has responsibility for maintaining the surface - or for that matter who has the right to resurface it?

Norman_Castle

What do your and their deeds say about the row? If they understand you own the road it would have been polite to talk to you first.

If the row runs alongside their boundary I suspect they can open an access anywhere unless stated otherwise in the deeds.

princeofpounds

This would be better off on the house buying board, to be honest.

The answer is that it depends. 

You say you own 'the rights to the road'. This is not a very meaningful phrase and actually may be obscuring the real situation - you must be precise in how you understand and express things.

The first question is - do you own the entire road on your freehold title? Yes or no? (If you have misplaced your title plan you can download it on the land registry for a couple of quid).

OK, assuming that you do own the road, then you need to find out the basis of the neighbour's easement over that road. An easement is a right over somebody else's land, and includes things like rights of way. 

Their easement is probably granted and defined in their title deeds. It may also appear on your title deeds - whichever one doesn't matter. Go and read them, see if there is a diagram and what the text in the title says. If it doesn't appear, they probably still have an easement as they can be acquired in ways that do not need to be written down, but we can deal with that if it is the case.

Then the third question is what exactly they are planning to do. They are allowed to construct driveways on their own land. They are probably not allowed to construct anything new on land they do not own. However, they are allowed to maintain the roadway they have an easement over (it is considered an ancillary right to the right of way).

Most probably they have an easement for vehicular access at all times and for all purposes to a shaded area on the title plan. So the main question will be if that leads up to their boundary at the point at which they want to cross, or not. 

Ectophile

If you're not sure what the deeds say, then the Land Registry will sell you a copy for a modest fee per house.