Buying house on an unadopted road

Skiddaw1

There's generally a resident's association or similar in unadopted road scenarios. Being as the road seems to be well-maintained I'd bet there is a formal arrangement even if the vendor seems ignorant of it.

ss876

AskAsk said:

when we lived at a previous property, there was a deed drawn up and a company set up for the maintenance of the road, which was ran by the owners on the road.  we had to show that to the solicitor of the buyer when we sold the property, so i think this is the situation here.

without an agreement of some sort, and ours was pretty formal, it may not be possible to get a mortgage unless you went to a mortgage broker possibly.

Yeah unfortunately in our case, the maintenance has fallen on the residents and there seems to be no indication of this agreed formally anywhere.

gwynlas

The condition of the road might just be reflective of the age of the estate hence vendor not being aware that one section is unadopted

Titus_Wadd

We live on a road with roughly 100 houses.  90% of the road is in private ownership with only the ends that join the main road network at either end adopted and maintained by the council.  The rest is unadopted and the owner(s) are unknown.  The house owners (frontagers) are responsible for the road width in front of their house, either to the centre point if there is another house opposite or to the opposite side where the house is opposite hedgerow.  It's a sought after address locally but it doesn't suit everyone. 

When we bought our solicitor understood the set up and (possibly because we weren't borrowing much against the house) satisfied queries about maintenance of the main stretch.  The reason the road is kept unmade is because it would form a cut through avoiding daily grid-locked roundabouts where two A roads meet.  The unmade road is less appealing to traffic trying to skip the two roundabouts because, on a bad day it can seriously damage one's (car's) under carriage.

That isn't to say that portions are better maintained surface than others, it's quite a long road made up of mainly houses and an occasional business such as a care home.

Occasionally new-comers try to drum up support for resurfacing but the status quo always wins.

I appreciate that this scenario isn't really helping the OP, but a kind of equilibrium is formed by unwritten mutual consent. Like an unwritten constitution, it adapts - the frontagers can alter to suit their needs/ preference -where a few houses agree they have laid tarmac on their bit they do.  Other portions are very potholed and we bought our current car having confirmed it had high enough clearance not to damage it driving uphill in the dark (no street lights either).  Our lender was satisfied that there was no onerous agreement in place.  If your vendor isn't motivated to make enquiries as a way forward to satisfy your lender with a solution I suppose you could call on the neighbours and ask about the status of the unadopted road?  I agree that the vendor should be doing this.

A few comedy moments on quite a long stretch of unadopted road - despite the county council highways department acknowledging that it is a public right of way and subject to all highway regulation, yet the police and local council claim it's private.  Even when asked, if say a 12 year old, over the alcohol limit, could speed up and down with impunity, they couldn't mentally process this scenario!  

It's the joy of living in a semi rural location where houses have names not numbers (like on "Ever Decreasing Circles"  Martin says "we're just not number people" ).  I just wanted to explain that not all unadopted roads have written agreements in place.  Not all privately owned roads are the same.

Speak to the vendors' estate agent, they should move heaven and earth to keep the sale progressing if they are any good.  The EA might be able to "guide" the vendors to solve the lender's reluctance.

Could you come back and update this thread, whatever the outcome OP?  That would be really useful to other other forum members. TIA.

bouicca21

What is the status of the road? Round my way there are some that have a clause in their deeds making the frontagers responsible for maintenance.  They collect money from time to time and buy a lorry full of gravel to fill the pot holes.  There is no formal agreement, but it sort of works (badly).  Elsewhere I know of roads where there are formal agreements, some lacking in any kind of enforcement mechanism.

The point is that there are many different kinds of arrangement for dealing with this kind of situation. There is also the possibility that at some stage the residents will vote to have the road adopted which will cost an eye watering amount of money.  OP is going to have to find out just what the situation is for that particular road.

theoretica

How old are the houses/road?  Undocumented arrangements are perhaps more common on older properties.  On the land registry maps is it shown who owns the road?  Do properties have part each or is the whole road owned by someone other than the house owners?

If there is nothing on the deeds for the house you are purchasing, it might be worth also checking the deeds of a house further along which is definitely on the road, in case the property you are interested in is just not part of the arrangement as it is partly on the adopted road.