Unadopted Road

Chloe3186

Hi all

I am currently buying a property which is on an old unadopted road. There are other unadopted roads off of this road and the road used to access our road is also unadopted. It has never been adopted by the council and I don’t believe it ever will. There are around 15+ properties on the road and the house we are purchasing is pretty much two houses down from a dead end. Which means only two other people use our part of the road.

We were aware from the get go that the property is on an unadopted road. The property has rights of way which are on the register title and from what I can see from 1935. The actual property itself was built on the land in 1995. However, there is no formal maintenance agreement and as far as I am aware no one actually owns the road. There is an informal agreement that everyone maintains the bit of road that their property fronts. There have never been any issues or disagreements from neighbours I have been told. The road to the front of our property isn’t in great repair and we have funds to redo once we own it.

The first thing we done was secured a mortgage offer with our current lender (nationwide), they gave it pretty much straight away and without any physical valuation, we have had all enquiries answered and all searches returned also.

Our conveyancer had to tell nationwide as a formality about the unadopted road once the local authority search was returned. They have come back to say that unless we have a formal maintenance agreement, they will not lend, our conveyancer offered an indemnity insurance in its place however, nationwide have rejected this.

We have now instructed a mortgage broker, who will be in a better position to tell us who will be more lenient with the unadopted road and accept the appropriate indemnity insurance.

I am now worried that if the new lender wants to do a physical valuation they will deem the road in poor condition and reject again.

This house ticks so many boxes, we have been looking for a very long time and this is the only one we have seen ourselves living in. It’s also in a nicer area with good schools and somewhere I would like my children to grow up.

Has anyone been in this position and what was the outcome? Another thing that is playing on my mind is if we come to sell are we going to have issues. I wonder if more lenders will follow suit and tighten their rules on unadopted roads.

I guess I am just looking for advice or people that have had similar and experiences and what the outcomes was?

Section62

Are all the utilites adopted? It isn't uncommon in unadopted road situations to find that the utilities, particularly drainage, also have issues. In my experience the situation if often worse where another unadopted road has to be used for access.

You mention the right of way dating back to 1935 - is this when the roads were laid out, or did your road only come into being when the houses were built in 1995.

Is the road fully made up (e.g. surfaced with tarmac or concrete) or is it gravel or temporary surfacing?

silvercar

May be worth asking the sellers who their mortgage is with.

Chloe3186

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82106362#Comment_82106362

I can see from the drainage and water search that they are owned by the utility companies. I am not sure about gas I will have to find that out.

I am not sure, it is just a covenant that is in the register of title dated 31 May 1935. The land was originally plot lands.

Yes the road is made up, tarmac.

Chloe3186

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82106377#Comment_82106377

Thank you, I didn't think of that. I have asked the seller.

onthemend

Hi

Yes, we live on an unadopted road, when we bought our house we made the vendor obtain an indemnity insurance policy to guarantee access, I think it only cost £150 ish, but it allowed us to get a mortgage. We had a mortgage with Leeds BS (since been paid off). We are now selling and have been able to pass on the policy to the new owners.

We also have to pay for any repairs which we club together with our neighbours

All existing drainage in our road is adopted, and we have street lights maintained by the local authority.

Section62

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82107988#Comment_82107988

indemnity insurance policy to guarantee access

Indemnity insurance couldn't guarantee access (as that could involve forcing someone to grant you access rights you don't have).

It could cover legal costs to assert your existing right, or for action to get an undocumented right acknowledged and documented, or a possible fallback of paying you the difference between the value of the property with and without access.