Rent common land - already have an easment

jimbo19

Hi there,
I’m hoping maybe a property lawyer on here can give some advice.
I currently have an easment on land registry for driving over and parking on common land adjacent to my house.
The local parish council have offered to rent the common land to me for as long as we have the house.
My question is , if I agree to rent the land will this affect the current easment that I have when we come to sell the house ?

Thanks

ProDave

If you have an easment that allows you to drive over it and park on it, what would you benefit by paying rent for the land?

Do others have a similar easment to drive over it and park on it, or is it just you?

Do members of the public have a right to walk over it?

UnderOffer

So you currently park for free, but want to start consider paying? 

Section62

jimbo19 said:

I currently have an easment on land registry for driving over and parking on common land adjacent to my house.
The local parish council have offered to rent the common land to me for as long as we have the house.

Is it actually legally common land, or just land that the parish council own and the public can use?

In my experience it is unusual for true common land to be rented out - 'common' meaning that any of the relevant 'commoners' have a right to use the land, and therefore granting exclusive rights to one person or entity is problematic.

propertyrental

As above. 
But to answer your question, no the easement wouldn't be affected.

user1977

Jacob_Jones said:

Did you (or do you) have to pay for this easement? 
When I bought my house, I seem to remember some easements, granted to utility companies to access whatever they needed. I don't think I ever got paid for allowing this access (if required - which it never has been, so far) agreement. 

I presume these easements were granted many years ago. So did the original owner of my house get payment for these agreements?

Possibly, or they were put in place as part of the original development (if builder wants their new housing estate to be connected up, they need to grant easements etc to the utilities).

YoungBlueEyes

I am not a property lawyer.

I'm not sure how renting it would be an improvement on what you already have, nor would it be a selling point if/when you sell if it's for "as long as we have the house"?

Like Section62 says I'm wondering if it's genuinely common land or something the council own and so can parcel off wee bits of it for folk to rent.  I live quite near a large area that is common land - it belongs to the people of that town. It's not in the council's ownership, they have no ability to rent out parts or give people different access rights or preclude anyone from using parts of it.

jimbo19

The land is adjacent to our garden and is “excepted” as it is within 20m of our property. The strip of land is approx 6m by 20m
what we want to do is fence it off along with our garden.

user1977

YoungBlueEyes said:

I'm not sure how renting it would be an improvement on what you already have, nor would it be a selling point if/when you sell if it's for "as long as we have the house"?

The advantage would be that they could occupy it, rather than merely having a right to cross it and park on it.

YoungBlueEyes

Oh aye. More caffeine required here I think 🙄

Say you fenced it off and added it to your garden, if it’s only “as long as we have the house” would that cause an issue when you sold? What if the council didn’t rent it to your buyers? 

No hang on, why wouldn’t they if it’s making them money…. I’ll just shurrup. 

user1977

YoungBlueEyes said:

What if the council didn’t rent it to your buyers? 

 

It could be a long lease with the ability to assign it to whoever buys the house.