Right Of Access

mrlinderley

Hi
Is it possible for a 'right of access' to only be on one title deed?
My neighbour is saying he has a right of access through a gate at the front/side of his house, down the side of my garage and through another gate into the back/side of his house.
There is no mention of this in my title deed.
Regards
John

stuhse

I believe it is possible,  you can download your neighbours title deeds for a couple of quid on the land registry website to check.  Make sure you don't get a fake site which charges more.

mrlinderley

We bought the property in 2022. Should my solicitor not of searched all the deeds of the properties that i share a boundary with?
I tried to download the deeds but it says they are not available.

theartfullodger

mrlinderley said:

We bought the property in 2022. Should my solicitor not of searched all the deeds of the properties that i share a boundary with?
I tried to download the deeds but it says they are not available.

So ask esteemed neighbour ( smiling, polite..) to kindly provide a copy.

Silvertabby

Does sound odd, though.  Is it possible that your neighbour extended his house, thus blocking off access to the garden, and that the previous owners of your house kindly allowed him to drag his bins/garden rubbish through their garden instead of his house?

ThisIsWeird

Meanwhile, nicely ask this neighbour for evidence, since your deeds say absolutely nothing about this. Meanwhile - sorry, pal - you do not have access to my garden without permission, so it would be 'trespass'. 

In practice, it can be hard to physically stop someone, unless they are also, say, being threatening or causing damage, but bear in mind that you have the same 'rights' as they 'claim', so you can walk through their garden too... I'm not suggesting you do this, of course, 'cos you are super-reasonable at all times, but you can ask him why this would be different, given there's zero evidence to support either case. 

Set your phone to surreptitiously to record, and have a calm, friendly chat, using questions as much as possible.

"I am not aware of any RoW or entitlement at all, and there is absolutely nothing in my deeds about this. What makes you think you have this access right?"

"Do you have any evidence of this?"

"What makes you think you have rights that cannot be evidenced?"

"Do you have more rights than anybody else?!"

"Can I walk through your garden as well, then? No? Why not?"

Ie, don't say he doesn't have rights, don't say that you can walk through his garden, but ask him to prove that he has.

And, finally, "Well, until you produce evidence of your claimed right of access, I need to make it clear that you absolutely do NOT have my permission to use ANY part of my property other than the front path leading straight to my door, just like everybody else!" Ie, have it unambiguously evidenced that you have made it clear to him that he does not have your permission to come on to your property, other than in the manner implied and granted to everybody else - ie, approaching your house, for a valid reason, via the designated pathway. 

One step at a time - get this part evidenced. You don't want him claiming that you two are still 'discussing' and 'ok' about his access 2 months down the line.

He either has evidence, or not.

Do you have Legal Protection on your house insurance? If so, call them up right away, and ask how best to resolve this. It's free.

user1977

mrlinderley said:

We bought the property in 2022. Should my solicitor not have searched all the deeds of the properties that i share a boundary with?
I tried to download the deeds but it says they are not available.

No, that wouldn't be normal practice. And if they're not available anyway, how would they have done it?

What did the vendor answer to the relevant question on the property information form?

mrlinderley

Just trying to add a photo to add some context. 
I have asked him to produce evidence but he is waiting for his deeds to come through.
He claims his right of access is between his gable end and my garage. It's about a meter wide and i have started to put my bins there but he said i can't as he needs access and it should be 90cm wide.

mrlinderley

gfgfggfgffgfg

mrlinderley

So my boundary is red. I am having the issue with blue. He claims access from A to B down the side of my garage. There is a right of access from C to D for the person living in green as until we bought the house he owned all the land in green and red.

ThisIsWeird

mrlinderley said:

So my boundary is red. I am having the issue with blue. He claims access from A to B down the side of my garage. There is a right of access from C to D for the person living in green as until we bought the house he owned all the land in green and red.

What does your deeds MAP show for these boundaries?

And, do your deeds explain in words the RoW for the 'green' property? If so, what exactly does it say - how specific is it to that property only? And is the 'green' occupant not bothered about you putting bins in their RoW?

And, the blue fellow - how else can they get access to the road from their garden? How important is 'your' pathway to them?

And, why do you want to stop blue but are ok with green?