House purchase - retaining wall

siananne

TBagpuss said:

When you got the survay did you ask your conveyancer to check the boundary issue? You had notive that it was a possible issue at that time and, unlike the solicitor will have presumably visited the property and seen the actual wall. 

FId the solicitor say or do anything to suggest that you were *not* responsible for the wall? It's pretty normal for  the wall or other boundary between a house and the road to be owned by / responsibility of the homepwner so I would have exepected that to be the default andfor your solicitor to only have told you if it were diferent, for instance if the deeds showed it was the property of the highway dept or council and they had rights to access your property for maintenace, for instance. 

The solicitor made no mention of the boundary wall at all so whether it was our responsibility or otherwise. Yes generally a boundary wall would be owned by the homeowner - unless it is a highways retaining wall from what I’ve read more recently. 

There was a section within our survey which summarised all the relevant issues for our legal advisor to check and this boundary wall was one of the points within that. They were provided a copy of the survey which also contained a photo of the retaining wall - this is my query really, was it reasonable for them to pick this up given that it was highlighted in the report as an issue for them to check?

Section62

siananne said:

TBagpuss said:

When you got the survay did you ask your conveyancer to check the boundary issue? You had notive that it was a possible issue at that time and, unlike the solicitor will have presumably visited the property and seen the actual wall. 

FId the solicitor say or do anything to suggest that you were *not* responsible for the wall? It's pretty normal for  the wall or other boundary between a house and the road to be owned by / responsibility of the homepwner so I would have exepected that to be the default andfor your solicitor to only have told you if it were diferent, for instance if the deeds showed it was the property of the highway dept or council and they had rights to access your property for maintenace, for instance. 

The solicitor made no mention of the boundary wall at all so whether it was our responsibility or otherwise. Yes generally a boundary wall would be owned by the homeowner - unless it is a highways retaining wall from what I’ve read more recently. 

There was a section within our survey which summarised all the relevant issues for our legal advisor to check and this boundary wall was one of the points within that. They were provided a copy of the survey which also contained a photo of the retaining wall - this is my query really, was it reasonable for them to pick this up given that it was highlighted in the report as an issue for them to check?

There's no hard and fast rules on ownership of retaining walls, including highway ones.  Some highway authorities might prefer to keep ownership of the retaining structure, others attempt to divest themselves of any responsibility.

In your case it appears the retained height of ground isn't that much, and most of the wall height is a simple boundary wall.  Also having the steps/entrance makes this case more complicated than the average highway retaining structure.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if the highway authority were correct that full responsibility for the wall went to the district council - it makes sense from the point of view that they/you would be in a position to change the wall and entrance/steps as they/you wish, rather than having to persuade the highway authority (with limited budget) to agree to make cosmetic changes to a wall which they owned.  (E.g. if you wanted to paint the iron railings a different colour).

siananne

Section62 said:

siananne said:

TBagpuss said:

When you got the survay did you ask your conveyancer to check the boundary issue? You had notive that it was a possible issue at that time and, unlike the solicitor will have presumably visited the property and seen the actual wall. 

FId the solicitor say or do anything to suggest that you were *not* responsible for the wall? It's pretty normal for  the wall or other boundary between a house and the road to be owned by / responsibility of the homepwner so I would have exepected that to be the default andfor your solicitor to only have told you if it were diferent, for instance if the deeds showed it was the property of the highway dept or council and they had rights to access your property for maintenace, for instance. 

The solicitor made no mention of the boundary wall at all so whether it was our responsibility or otherwise. Yes generally a boundary wall would be owned by the homeowner - unless it is a highways retaining wall from what I’ve read more recently. 

There was a section within our survey which summarised all the relevant issues for our legal advisor to check and this boundary wall was one of the points within that. They were provided a copy of the survey which also contained a photo of the retaining wall - this is my query really, was it reasonable for them to pick this up given that it was highlighted in the report as an issue for them to check?

There's no hard and fast rules on ownership of retaining walls, including highway ones.  Some highway authorities might prefer to keep ownership of the retaining structure, others attempt to divest themselves of any responsibility.

In your case it appears the retained height of ground isn't that much, and most of the wall height is a simple boundary wall.  Also having the steps/entrance makes this case more complicated than the average highway retaining structure.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if the highway authority were correct that full responsibility for the wall went to the district council - it makes sense from the point of view that they/you would be in a position to change the wall and entrance/steps as they/you wish, rather than having to persuade the highway authority (with limited budget) to agree to make cosmetic changes to a wall which they owned.  (E.g. if you wanted to paint the iron railings a different colour).

Yes makes sense So if this is the case - then going back to my original query, is it reasonable that our solicitor should have highlighted this to us? Isn’t this the purpose of the property report to identify potential liabilities..?

The retained wall section is around 6 foot with a small section and the railings then above pavement level (which i accept is ours) - quite a substantial amount if it were to fail and the road subsided into our garden, we’d be looking at a significant repair bill! 

LorF

Hope you sorted this query.  I had a missing wall off my conveyancing agreement.  13 years later I resolved helped by looking at old ordnance survey map.  I found a very costly highway wall was built after my conveyancing agreement and it was under the council as the road was widened.  My agreement was from  railway board and after querying ordnance survey maps and dates they found in their archive the missing council liability agreement for the wall.  Ordnance survey that you can get free online from Library of Scotland detailed my property even to trees that raised questions as land set up was different.  In my area, councils keep changing in structure but my wall belongs to County Council.  Councils change but they usually transfer assets and liabilities across to new ones.  My solicitor never picked this up I noticed it was missing from conveyancing agreement.  I had to resolve now as wall in poor state of repair.    Land Registry could not help me at all.  Wishing you get this sorted as I know how stressful it can be and my resolve has taken years.