Unadopted road hell

anon6389

We were about to organise exchange and completion dates and a shitstorm has come up. Sorry for the length I tried to condense as much as possible.

Property is a flat in a purpose built development, built 23 years ago. All roads surrounding the property are maintained at public expense except for the one that houses about 10 property entrances (including mine) and the car park entrance. The road was purpose built for the property and is listed within the planning permission. The council owns the land the road was built on and a section 38 was created at the time of build. Turns out, 20 odd years later, the road remains unadopted as it has not met highways requirements. 

The road however appears to be maintained, there is new signage and road markings and the schedule requirements listed in the section 38 all appear to have been fulfilled from my rudimentary understanding.

Unfortunately, there is no documented right of access or enforcement of maintenance that anyone can find. Within the estate boundaries there appears to be legal right of way on foot via the publicly maintained roads but no vehicle access due to the unadopted road. The council have said they have reached out many times over the years to arrange adoption but the developer is unresponsive, this appears to me to be because they no longer exist as I cannot find any records of their business on companies house or anywhere online. 

My lender will not accept indemnity or prescriptive use currently and both solicitors are making further enquiries, however I am worried I am screwed.

The seller had no idea about this. It’s odd because, there are like 10 entrances to the estate coming off that road and people have purchased properties within the last 3 years. Some may be cash bought and therefore could have disregarded this, but it’s likely that at least some were able to mortgage. 

Has anyone experienced anything like this before and has any anecdotal experience or advice? I know my solicitor will have the best answers and they are great but they are incredibly vague and often leave a lot of my questions unanswered and I’m just so confused. 

It’s a property in a residential area and there is a council owned public amenity on the other side of the road (but no entrance from this road) there is a high volume of foot traffic and cars are always parked on the road. I just can’t believe there is no public access. I am panicking so much because if this falls through it is unlikely I will be able to buy another property without waiting a few more years to rebuild the lost solicitor funds and meet affordability for the new interest rates. My mortgage deal expires in 3 months and I just can’t believe legal right of access isn’t the first thing that’s checked when buying a property.