Adjusting right of way

[hidetheelephants]

blueg33 said:

dickymint said:

There is a solution - keep the RoW the same and let the neighbours walk through the extension - everybody happy and no legal expenses

many years ago a well known housebuilder built over a RoW and had to leave the front and back doors open for people to walk through.

I watched that documentary; it had a fat police inspector who moonlighted as a chef.

[Boom78]

This all sounds like a total nightmare to me and not worth any of the money, bother, stress and associated agro. Stick with your lot or in worst case move somewhere that suits your needs.

[OutInTheShed]

The way for this to work is if the other houses want to enable having similar extensions in the future.
If you'd gone for building your extension in a pair with next door, then it would be a lot easier.

This easement, is it generally used a few times a year to get 'stuff' in/out of the gardens?
How exactly is it worded?
If it's just some words about crossing the garden, then maybe altering the point at which the garden is crossed is within the OP's power?
What are the limits of it? Is it just for pedestrians? Push bike wheeled/ridden? vehicles? goods?
If there is a plan with 'colouring in', then it's harder to mmove.

If you haven't done so, I would download the LR 'deeds' of the neighbours to see what their side of covenants/easements etc says.
It's a few quid and might possibly give some leverage?

[dickymint]

OutInTheShed said:

The way for this to work is if the other houses want to enable having similar extensions in the future.
If you'd gone for building your extension in a pair with next door, then it would be a lot easier.

This easement, is it generally used a few times a year to get 'stuff' in/out of the gardens?
How exactly is it worded?
If it's just some words about crossing the garden, then maybe altering the point at which the garden is crossed is within the OP's power?
What are the limits of it? Is it just for pedestrians? Push bike wheeled/ridden? vehicles? goods?
If there is a plan with 'colouring in', then it's harder to mmove.

If you haven't done so, I would download the LR 'deeds' of the neighbours to see what their side of covenants/easements etc says.
It's a few quid and might possibly give some leverage?

Excellent point

[Jaska]

tommobot said:

|https://thumbsnap.com/BQhaUcQC[/url]

New plan, go in with your neighbours and sell the bottom 30% of all your gardens to a developer... Demolish your house for the access road, job jobbed.

[minipower]

To be honest without going all legal, I’d simply just say to the neighbours I’m going to move the access gate further up the lawn due to the extension. It looks to be better for your neighbour as it means their neighbour won’t walk directly past their back window. The gardens are long as well so I’m surprised people have an issue.

Check the title to see if it is a general right over your land or whether the access is explicitly referred to by reference to a plan. From the title plan image it would appear not. Yes they likely have a prescriptive right due to how long the route has been used but the inconvenience is minimal. Deal with it amicably as involving lawyers in the context of a dispute will make matters a lot more costly. If it does need lawyers to document the matter, a simple deed of easement will deal with this but will need to be registered on the titles so will require bank consent with anyone who has a mortgage. The deed can cover release of the existing rights so far as they exist. Lawyers costs will vary depending on who each party uses but expect £500 to £2,000 plus vat for each. Note this is for a property lawyer not a litigator if there is a dispute.

[dickymint]

minipower said:

To be honest without going all legal, I’d simply just say to the neighbours I’m going to move the access gate further up the lawn due to the extension. It looks to be better for your neighbour as it means their neighbour won’t walk directly past their back window. The gardens are long as well so I’m surprised people have an issue.

Check the title to see if it is a general right over your land or whether the access is explicitly referred to by reference to a plan. From the title plan image it would appear not. Yes they likely have a prescriptive right due to how long the route has been used but the inconvenience is minimal. Deal with it amicably as involving lawyers in the context of a dispute will make matters a lot more costly. If it does need lawyers to document the matter, a simple deed of easement will deal with this but will need to be registered on the titles so will require bank consent with anyone who has a mortgage. The deed can cover release of the existing rights so far as they exist. Lawyers costs will vary depending on who each party uses but expect £500 to £2,000 plus vat for each. Note this is for a property lawyer not a litigator if there is a dispute.

Just in case you've forgotten the OP's opening post............

"I've briefly mentioned to this about with my neighbours landlord, who is already being a bit of a knob about such matters."

No good talking to the neighbour as they don't come into the equation.

[Pit Pony]

pinchmeimdreamin said:

I wouldn’t try using this opinion in any negotiations

Only cold hard cash will remove objections.

And even then neighbours can refuse.

We had a house with zero rear access, on a main road with limited parking, but we backed onto a wide private drive to two houses that had been built about 140 years after ours. I say private drive, but more of an unadopted road, with a road name sign, but on the deeds of his house, it clearly showed thier ownership.

I reckoned having a rear pedestrian access, would add 5% maybe £10k to the value, but allow us to get a cycle into the shed without taking it through the house.

And if we could have car access, it would allow us to build a car port with electric charger and future proof the house. Might add £20k to the value.

It would have zero value impact to their house.

Neighbour wouldn't talk to me about it. Would only tell me that the previous owner of our house had blocked up the alleyway under next to the house to build a kitchen (this wasn't true, there had never been an alleyway). I think what you call a red hering.

I tried offering £20k for a right of access down this road/drive. Did it in writing. Did it in person.

Point blank refusal.

We moved in the end.

There was no dispute over right of access, so we didn't declare it on a sales document. Or mention it, other than saying that the neighbour had allowed a scaffold firm.to reverse up to the hedge and throw poles over it, so we could refurbish the roof, which was kind of him, as he probably didn't have to do that.

[minipower]

dickymint said:

Just in case you've forgotten the OP's opening post............

"I've briefly mentioned to this about with my neighbours landlord, who is already being a bit of a knob about such matters."

No good talking to the neighbour as they don't come into the equation.

That is standard for these types of scenarios. Still best to persevere and re-open conversation with the neighbour, explain the minimal impact in more detail. It is extremely easy to document. May well/likely going by the neighbour’s approach end up with having to make an offer.

If they really don’t want to accept then yes, you are very limited with what you can do.

Edit to add - by neighbour I mean freehold owner. Not the tenant.

[JQ]

Pit Pony said:

It would have zero value impact to their house.

It would likely devalue their house. It would likely make their house less marketable. It would significantly increase the likelihood of disruption and dispute to their lives.

As a PH’er I’m sure your behaviour would have been without reproach had they given you access. But I’m afraid there are others in this world who are less thoughtful. Things that could easily happen:

You start parking on their drive
Your visitors start parking on their drive
You start leaving your bins there
You buy a caravan and leave it there
Your neighbours see what you’ve done and also start using the drive
You kids start playing on their drive
Your neighbours kids start playing on their drive
You buy a 5.0l Mustang and rev the nuts off it every morning at 5am
You buy a vintage Ducati and leave it idling for hours every Sunday

Unless your neighbours desperately needed £20,000 why would they take the risk, I certainly wouldn’t. And it’s why I’m very very unlikely to ever buy a house with shared access.

[bennno]

JQ said:

It would likely devalue their house. It would likely make their house less marketable. It would significantly increase the likelihood of disruption and dispute to their lives.

As a PH’er I’m sure your behaviour would have been without reproach had they given you access. But I’m afraid there are others in this world who are less thoughtful. Things that could easily happen:

You start parking on their drive
Your visitors start parking on their drive
You start leaving your bins there
You buy a caravan and leave it there
Your neighbours see what you’ve done and also start using the drive
You kids start playing on their drive
Your neighbours kids start playing on their drive
You buy a 5.0l Mustang and rev the nuts off it every morning at 5am
You buy a vintage Ducati and leave it idling for hours every Sunday

Unless your neighbours desperately needed £20,000 why would they take the risk, I certainly wouldn’t. And it’s why I’m very very unlikely to ever buy a house with shared access.

By that definition you’d also avoid any property with neighbours that’s served by even the public highway?

[Pit Pony]

bennno said:

JQ said:

It would likely devalue their house. It would likely make their house less marketable. It would significantly increase the likelihood of disruption and dispute to their lives.

As a PH’er I’m sure your behaviour would have been without reproach had they given you access. But I’m afraid there are others in this world who are less thoughtful. Things that could easily happen:

You start parking on their drive
Your visitors start parking on their drive
You start leaving your bins there
You buy a caravan and leave it there
Your neighbours see what you’ve done and also start using the drive
You kids start playing on their drive
Your neighbours kids start playing on their drive
You buy a 5.0l Mustang and rev the nuts off it every morning at 5am
You buy a vintage Ducati and leave it idling for hours every Sunday

Unless your neighbours desperately needed £20,000 why would they take the risk, I certainly wouldn’t. And it’s why I’m very very unlikely to ever buy a house with shared access.

By that definition you’d also avoid any property with neighbours that’s served by even the public highway?

He has a point. Up to a point. If the drive, which is shared with the neighbour, had access to every house, that backed onto it, it wouldn't put me off buying their house.

But yes, those people might be dicks.

[The Three D Mucketeer]

I bought a new house with a "shared" driveway ... as stated by my Solicitor when they did the conveyancing . It was only some years later that I discovered a "shared" piece of land doesn't exist.... It is owned by one property and another property is granted "right of access across it" in the deeds , which leaves you exposed and your only resort is court battles when they start obstructing it .
The Police threatened me with criminal damage when I painted white lines to mark the "shared" area and I had to remove the lines.

Edited by The Three D Mucketeer on Friday 29th March 10:01

[DanL]

Depends what the ROW is used for, I’d have thought?

If it’s used every week by people putting their bins out then I wouldn’t expect the neighbours to agree. No one wants to walk further than necessary , and I’d assume there’s a path or other hard ground across the back of the houses to make moving the bins reasonably easy.

If it’s a legacy from when the properties were built and just provides occasional access to the rear for scaffolding and so on then I might hope that the neighbours would be amenable to the change…

[bristolbaron]

Comparing your original image:

tommobot said:

To the actual plan:

tommobot said:

[url]

|https://thumbsnap.com/BQhaUcQC[/url]

makes a significant difference. From your first post, it seemed there was a straight run directly across the back of the houses, but as they’re staggered this can’t be possible.

Might 30 have lost their ROW when extending? The extension looks to run the full width of the property, so unless they have a side door straight into 32’s garden, there’s already a break in the ROW?

It would be interesting to see where EXACTLY the ROW is marked and where the access point is between 30 & 32.

[JQ]

bennno said:

JQ said:

It would likely devalue their house. It would likely make their house less marketable. It would significantly increase the likelihood of disruption and dispute to their lives.

As a PH’er I’m sure your behaviour would have been without reproach had they given you access. But I’m afraid there are others in this world who are less thoughtful. Things that could easily happen:

You start parking on their drive
Your visitors start parking on their drive
You start leaving your bins there
You buy a caravan and leave it there
Your neighbours see what you’ve done and also start using the drive
You kids start playing on their drive
Your neighbours kids start playing on their drive
You buy a 5.0l Mustang and rev the nuts off it every morning at 5am
You buy a vintage Ducati and leave it idling for hours every Sunday

Unless your neighbours desperately needed £20,000 why would they take the risk, I certainly wouldn’t. And it’s why I’m very very unlikely to ever buy a house with shared access.

By that definition you’d also avoid any property with neighbours that’s served by even the public highway?

No, because there are rules and laws around what you can do on a public highway that are easily enforced. On private land if someone starts being unreasonable it’s much more difficult and much more expensive to resolve.

The story earlier in the thread about my father having to take out a court injunction against his neighbour was after him living there for 60 years without issue. Shared access is fine until an idiot moves in next door.

[tommobot]

DanL said:

Depends what the ROW is used for, I’d have thought?

If it’s used every week by people putting their bins out then I wouldn’t expect the neighbours to agree. No one wants to walk further than necessary , and I’d assume there’s a path or other hard ground across the back of the houses to make moving the bins reasonably easy.

If it’s a legacy from when the properties were built and just provides occasional access to the rear for scaffolding and so on then I might hope that the neighbours would be amenable to the change…

I don't think its defined anywhere what the actual use is, but realistcally its very limited use of occasionally the green bin and access for severn trent to clear a shared drain (no connected to our property)

Regarding title plans, I've purchased the 3 in question and its actually quite positive potentially.

Starting with No 30 (which was purchased last year)

Oh, and for further context...






Absolutely no right of passage noted, so can only assume a balls up on the solicitors part. I know the owner brought it from the long time landlord without it going to market so perhaps full checks weren't made, anyway - no ROW noted on either 32 or ours.



No 32 (adjacent)

A right of way is noted, but potentially positively a large rear extension is missing from our plan. This means the ROW currently is in the middle of our Kitchen and is blocked up. Even better that the adjacent landlord, who claimed he owned and built our extension potentially overlooked that little doozy?

|https://thumbsnap.com/MEhpdfGq[/url]

No 34.

Ours again has the extension missing, Im prettty certain I remember seeing a differnt land regsitery plan when we purchased the property through our solicitor, but ultimately this is what is on the land registry plan so surely what matters?

Again, this shows the ROW in the middle of our Kitchen.



I'd possibly suggest i'm actually in quite a good position, as well, they need updating... and to my mind, no 30 is out of the equation now... (unless written somewhere that they have access)

As posted earlier, the OS extract below denotes pretty much the existing layout



Oh, and further further context.. the other side of the gate..

[paulrockliffe]

The plans don't show rights gained by prescription, so they aren't the complete picture. It's definitely not a positive that you've already obstructed the access with another extension, if you push this too far your neighbour could look at the plans and make things even more difficult for you.

[tommobot]

paulrockliffe said:

The plans don't show rights gained by prescription, so they aren't the complete picture. It's definitely not a positive that you've already obstructed the access with another extension, if you push this too far your neighbour could look at the plans and make things even more difficult for you.

As noted above, the owner of the adjacent property commented that he built the extension on our property circa 25 years ago when he apprarently owned this property - Which would make it his balls up, not holding anyone to blame etc... but it needs making right so why not ammend at the same time

[AW10]

It might well have been his cock-up back in the day but as you now own the property you also own any needed resolution. You (unknowingly) took that on at the point of purchase.

It really does look like you need to get a crystal clear understanding of who has what access rights whether formally documented or prescriptive. Rushing into getting a change agreed without thoroughly understanding the status quo leaves you at risk of scoring an own goal by not being able to do what you want and worst case, being backed into a corner having to fix something you didn't break.

As unpalatable as it could be you might wish to leave sleeping dogs lie.

People do funny thngs when it comes to boundary disputes - they can wreck people's lives and finances.