House with ransom shared access

Pat38493

Does anyone have experience of purchasing houses with shared access or land arrangements where there is supposedly an option to purchase or annul the access?

The house has 2 driveways.  One of them has shared access rights with a neighbour.  From what we can see, the neighbour has no need of the rights as they already have much easier access from the other side.  However, understandably the neighbour of this house wants £25K (have not seen this in writing but only verbally so far) to “sell the land” (again needs to be confirmed in detail what that means and if there is something in writing).

The house and drives are actually perfectly fine without having the shared access, but it would prevent for example the new owner from erecting a garage on that drive.

Does anyone have a similar experience or know whether the purchase or annulment of such rights, can be made part of the chain of transactions so that it’s a condition of buying the house?

Also does anyone know if there is any kind of going rate for this type of issue because another factor is that you don’t want to live next to neighbours who are happy to try to exploit the situation beyond normality.

FlorayG

There is no 'going rate'. Either the neighbour agrees to an offer you make or he doesn't. Remember this bit of land is worth a lot more to you than to anyone else, and the neighbour loses nothing by refusing to sell, so can pretty much set any value they want and then I guess you negotiate.
A friend of mine has a little bit of land - big enough for two cars - at the end of her garden that her neighbour opposite wants. She told him £20k and no negotiation and he can buy it or not. As she said " I don't need to sell it and that's what it would cost him for the legal hassle of selling it and transferring ownership"

BikingBud

Pat38493 said:

Does anyone have experience of purchasing houses with shared access or land arrangements where there is supposedly an option to purchase or annul the access?

The house has 2 driveways.  One of them has shared access rights with a neighbour.  From what we can see, the neighbour has no need of the rights as they already have much easier access from the other side.  However, understandably the neighbour of this house wants £25K (have not seen this in writing but only verbally so far) to “sell the land” (again needs to be confirmed in detail what that means and if there is something in writing).

The house and drives are actually perfectly fine without having the shared access, but it would prevent for example the new owner from erecting a garage on that drive.

Does anyone have a similar experience or know whether the purchase or annulment of such rights, can be made part of the chain of transactions so that it’s a condition of buying the house?

Also does anyone know if there is any kind of going rate for this type of issue because another factor is that you don’t want to live next to neighbours who are happy to try to exploit the situation beyond normality.

Is there a right of way over the shared access?

If so then the neighbour cannot build a garage or otherwise block enjoyment of that right of way.

eddddy

Pat38493 said:

Does anyone have a similar experience or know whether the purchase or annulment of such rights, can be made part of the chain of transactions so that it’s a condition of buying the house?

So I think you're saying that you want to do 2 transactions at the same time, for example:

• Buy a house from Mr A
• Buy a piece of land from Mr B that provides additional access for £25k (Mr B being Mr A's neighbour)

There should be no problem instructing your solicitor that you want both those transactions done simultaneously - so that you don't end up with just one and not the other.

As you say, it's a bit like adding another link in a property selling/buying chain. (So you have the added risk of Mr B, moving slowly, messing you about, changing their mind, etc - which would mess up the chain.)


The same would be true if you wanted to do both of these things at the same time:

• Buy a house from Mr A
• Sign a deed with Mr B, that annuls Mr B's right to use the access (presumably Mr B would want payment for doing that as well)

 

user1977

"Ransom" seems an inappropriate word here, if it's merely an additional access route which the property already has the right to use.

eddddy

Pat38493 said:

Also does anyone know if there is any kind of going rate for this type of issue because another factor is that you don’t want to live next to neighbours who are happy to try to exploit the situation beyond normality.

If you're talking about buying the access for £25k...

If you want to get technical (or philosophical) about it, there are 2 elements to doing a valuation...

    1) How much would it increase the market value of the house?
    2) How much would it improve the enjoyment of your house and/or the quality of your life?

You could ask an estate agent (or assess yourself) how much it would increase the market value of the house.

But only you can judge how much it would improve the your enjoyment of the house or the quality of your life - and translate that into how much monetary value you put on that.


Sometimes people spend tens of thousands on changes to their homes, on things which won't increase the value of their house by much, but it increases their enjoyment of their house, or the quality of their life.

Slinky

eddddy said:

Pat38493 said:

Does anyone have a similar experience or know whether the purchase or annulment of such rights, can be made part of the chain of transactions so that it’s a condition of buying the house?

So I think you're saying that you want to do transactions at the same time, for example:

• Buy a house from Mr A
• Buy a piece of land from Mr B that provides additional access for £25k (Mr B being Mr A's neighbour)

There should be no problem instructing your solicitor that you want both those transactions done simultaneously - so that you don't end up with just one and not the other.

As you say, it's a bit like adding another link in a property selling/buying chain. (So you have the added risk of Mr B, moving slowly, messing you about, changing their mind, etc - which would mess up the chain.)


The same would be true if you wanted to do both of these things at the same time:

• 
  
• Buy a house from Mr A
• Sign a deed with Mr B, that annuls Mr B's right to use the access (presumably Mr B would want payment for doing that as well)

 

I think the point the OP is making is that he doesn't want to pay Mr B £25K for the land.

He could of course try reducing his offer to Mr A by £25K to cover the cost of buying the land from Mr B, but I can't see Mr A being happy with that.

OP seems to assume he will be able to get PP to erect a garage if he owns the land, which is by no means a given......particularly if Mr B decides to be really horrible and object to it, having received £25K for the land.

Pat38493

BikingBud said:

Pat38493 said:

Does anyone have experience of purchasing houses with shared access or land arrangements where there is supposedly an option to purchase or annul the access?

The house has 2 driveways.  One of them has shared access rights with a neighbour.  From what we can see, the neighbour has no need of the rights as they already have much easier access from the other side.  However, understandably the neighbour of this house wants £25K (have not seen this in writing but only verbally so far) to “sell the land” (again needs to be confirmed in detail what that means and if there is something in writing).

The house and drives are actually perfectly fine without having the shared access, but it would prevent for example the new owner from erecting a garage on that drive.

Does anyone have a similar experience or know whether the purchase or annulment of such rights, can be made part of the chain of transactions so that it’s a condition of buying the house?

Also does anyone know if there is any kind of going rate for this type of issue because another factor is that you don’t want to live next to neighbours who are happy to try to exploit the situation beyond normality.

Is there a right of way over the shared access?

If so then the neighbour cannot build a garage or otherwise block enjoyment of that right of way.

Do you mean a public right of way, or just a shared access right for the owner of the neighbouring land? It is not a public right of way if that’s what you mean.

As I understand it, it’s a shared access right only to the neighbour to cross that land in order to access part of their land (albeit that they don’t actually need it as they have a much easier access from the other direction).

It would not be them building a garage it would be me - the shared access drive is the obvious (and only) option to place a garage.  If we decide we don’t even need a garage, there might not even be any point trying to get rid of the shared access as I highly doubt they even use it today as it would be completely pointless, other than to enforce their rights.

The drive with the shared access, is owned by me (or would be if I bought the property), but they have the right to cross it to access their land.

The way the EA described it, they offered to sell a small square of land at the end of this drive to me (if I was the buyer).  doing this would effectively render the shared access useless to them, because they do not have shared access all the way to their property.

However, it’s possible the EA got this wrong and this is what I have asked them to get clarified - what’s really needed is to somehow completely remove this right of shared access from their ownership.  Are you suggesting that this is not legally possible?

What I also need to understand and I would ask them to clarify is whether the shared access rights, allows them to actually park a car there, or only to drive across it.  If they can actually park a car there, that’s a showstopper for me as it would block my access to my own garden (albeit that it would be completely pointless for them to do this as it’s too far from their own house and they would then be blocking their own access rights as well as mine).

Pat38493

Slinky said:

eddddy said:

Pat38493 said:

Does anyone have a similar experience or know whether the purchase or annulment of such rights, can be made part of the chain of transactions so that it’s a condition of buying the house?

So I think you're saying that you want to do transactions at the same time, for example:

• Buy a house from Mr A
• Buy a piece of land from Mr B that provides additional access for £25k (Mr B being Mr A's neighbour)

There should be no problem instructing your solicitor that you want both those transactions done simultaneously - so that you don't end up with just one and not the other.

As you say, it's a bit like adding another link in a property selling/buying chain. (So you have the added risk of Mr B, moving slowly, messing you about, changing their mind, etc - which would mess up the chain.)


The same would be true if you wanted to do both of these things at the same time:

• 
  
• Buy a house from Mr A
• Sign a deed with Mr B, that annuls Mr B's right to use the access (presumably Mr B would want payment for doing that as well)

 

I think the point the OP is making is that he doesn't want to pay Mr B £25K for the land.

He could of course try reducing his offer to Mr A by £25K to cover the cost of buying the land from Mr B, but I can't see Mr A being happy with that.

OP seems to assume he will be able to get PP to erect a garage if he owns the land, which is by no means a given......particularly if Mr B decides to be really horrible and object to it, having received £25K for the land.

Well no eddddy is on the right track.  Pending further details and clarifications from EA / solicitors, what I want do do is buy the house, and sign a. Deed with Mr.B that annuls Mr B’s right to use the access.  I fully understand that I would have to pay Mr B for this and I am wondering whether £25K is a far price, an extortionate price, or a bargain.

And Yes I am aware that planning permission for a garage would be a separate matter.  Frankly I’m not even sure if we want to build a garage - I am just concerned about not having the option if we wanted to do that at some later date.  I am also concerned that this issue could reduce the saleability of the house later on as some buyers would be put off by even the possibility of any potential hassle about it.

It might be that from an negotiation point of view, the better option is to simply buy the house, and tell Mr B we are not interested in buying his surrender of the access rights unless he lowers the price, and to let us know if at some future year he wants to do that, and then just wait.

However before doing that I would also need to understand what he could theoretically do with his shared access rights if he wants to make life difficult for me and try to force me to buy it.  i.e. to be extreme about it, could he park a cement mixer on it or something.

molerat

You need to see exactly what the title deeds - downloadable from LR - say.  Most likely to pass and repass either on foot or with a vehicle to access his land.  Very unlikely to have the right to park on it.

ThisIsWeird

Hi Pat.
As said above, first thing is to check your prospective deeds for the exact details, and also worth checking that of the neighbour to confirm they agree.
Most likely it just provides a 'right of way', 'easement', or 'covenant' to the neighbour, to pass and repass across that drive for the purpose of accessing their property. Almost certainly it won't allow parking or any other obstruction by them.
From what you say, this driveway is fully owned by your vendor - it'll be shown as such as being within the property boundary. However it'll likely be shaded or coloured differently, with a written reference in the deeds to this easement.
So, for the sake of around a £iver for each deeds copy - yours and neighb's - it would be worth checking this. The EA should really be clued up on this too, but I wouldn't rely on them... And your conveyancer will ultimately have this info and can advise you, but I guess you want to 'know' the likely consequences and options before you proceed further?
Assuming it's as you suspect, you wouldn't be 'purchasing' this land as you'll already own it. Instead, I understand you'll be requesting from your neighbour a 'Deed of release', a pretty standard legal process of little cost (some solicitor's fees), coupled - of course - with the agreement of the neighbour. And there's the rub...
This would already be your land. The only hassle is that you'd need to leave it clear in case your neighb needs it for access. It may even be that you could park your car there temporarily, provided you shift it on request whenever the neighb wishes to pass, but check the deeds for details. But clearly you could not restrict access in any 'significant' way, so the land's use to you is bound to be very limited.
So, how much is it worth for the neighb to agree to remove their right of passage? No idea. But clearly it should be nothing like the value of the actual land. 
From what you say, they have little, and very limited, use for their easement. All they seemingly can do is pass over it for access. Not for 'fun', and not to 'make a point'. If they'll never realistically need or wish to do this again, then it's effectively worth nothing to them. But, they will almost certainly will want 'something'.
The simplest way forward is to pass the buck on to the vendor. As soon as the neighb agrees a deed of release, it should be plain sailing. You agree a price with the vendor - split the difference of what the neighbour is asking, for example.