Neighbour constantly trespassing in yard, claims right of way.

chappers wrote: »

But if access was there before the conversion then afterwards the ROA would have to be explicitly removed as part of a transfer. Just selling the land behind the door to someone else wouldn't be sufficient to nullify the ROA, as the continued access across the land prior to the conversion would be sufficient to establish the access as lawful.
The owner of the door would have to explicitly give up the right to access or else someone would have to buy it with the denial of access explicitly written into the transfer .

Not if the previous owner of the part of the house that became the maisonette also owned the land. You don't need right of access across your own land.

Fiesto88 wrote: »

^^ this.
everybody uses their back door into the kitchen as the main entrance round here.

Why do they do that? Do they have a front door going onto the front garden/street?

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

Would it be any different from buying a flat without a back door at all?

Yes particularly in view of what I have said previously about removing the ROW in the correct manner.

Also back to the OPs situation I would say that if this went to dispute and eventually court/arbitration that as it is clear that at some point there must have been at least access/ROW to the yard, that in the absence of any subsequent documentation to the contrary, that they would grant the access/ROW still valid.
When the freehold of a property is split in this sort of situation whether by creating leases or dividing freeholds, easements are normally written into the transfer for the sake of clarity, but just because they are not doesn't mean that they don't exist. Easements can be implied, for example by habitual use, however the discontinuation of such and easement, whether written or implied, in a subsequent transfer would have to be explicit.

I am in the process of buying a property where something similar happened and access across a small piece of land, linking a lane with an explicit ROW and our property, didn't have any access written. This had been missed over two previous conveyances. Both solicitors were sure that this wouldn't be a problem and that the land tribunal would rule that as there had obviously been continuous access across this land since the original transfer, that a ROW was established.
As it happened in the end the original owner, from before the property was divided was tracked down and a deed of variation was written into the original transfer.

I totally get what your saying and also understand the person who asked what the difference would be if the door wasn't there.
But my inkling is that if there clearly was a previous right of way that has been removed, then the property has been devalued.
I suppose it would depend upon how valuable that ROW might be to you, for example if car parking was to the rear and you had to schlepp all the way down the street and then round the back again from the front or similar.
Maybe it's just a psychological thing but I would certainly be put off buying a house if in effect I couldn't use any of the doors or windows