Building over a Right of Way

[mjb1]

Neighbours have submitted plans for a rear extension of their house, including building across the private foot path that runs immediately behind the houses. It's a bit messy how the ownership of the path has been split up over the years, but basically each house now owns the bit of path behind it, and the others have RoW over each bit. The path is only open to the highway at one end, and now the owner of the house at the other (dead) end wants to build across it. The title deeds clearly stipulate a RoW 'on foot' over it. One neighbour has given theirs up (when they sold this bit of path on). But my house still retains a RoW over the affected part of the path. Even though it's further down, beyond my house, and isn't a valid route to get anywhere, there's still technically a RoW there.

I have pointed this out to the neighbour that is planning to building over it, but they seemed to think it was a non issue, and they could build regardless. We're not on great terms, due to issues caused by their previous extensions. They seem to have distinct sense of high and mighty entitlement, and just do whatever they want, then act dumb when someone has the audacity to pull them up on something.

If I was being awkward, could the RoW be used to stop the building of the extension? Would it be a trivial matter for them to just remove a 'redundant' RoW from their title deeds, could that be even done without me agreeing to give it up? I was hoping to use it as bargaining leverage to possibly move or rescind their RoW over the part of the path behind my house (which is a valid access to their property, and I can't see them wanting to loose it). It's a short row involved, and myself and this neighbour are now the only remaining properties using/affected by the RoW on this path.

Does the planning office have any interest take any interest if preserving a RoW, or do they see it as completely irrelevant from a planning permission perspective? I'm guessing it's going to open a whole legal can of worms, and could escalate from a trivial matter quite easily.

[mjb1]

GoneAnon said:

Is it a right of way for the public or just for the neighbouring landowners>

If the latter you could trade your right of access to their bit of the path in return for them giving up their access to your bit. Then fence it off for good.

It's a private RoW, granted in the title deeds where the neighbouring properties are (or were) all specified.

Ideally, I'd be quite happy to trade my RoW for theirs - rescinding both of them. Worth a try I guess, but I can't seem them agreeing as their RoW over my bit of path is their only external access to their back garden/back door (they have access at the front no problem). My RoW over their path goes literally no where once it reaches the far side of their property. The other potential option is if they would trade for a redirection of the RoW over my garden, so it goes along the bottom end of my garden (where I already have a path running behind my garage) and into the bottom of their garden. That's a good distance from the houses, and out of view, so it would create more privacy and could be a good compromise. Again, not sure they'd want to go that route, it would create a little more inconvenience to them, being further to walk from the public highway to their back door.

A major part of my issue is that their planned extension involves moving their back door from being in line with mine, to being perpendicular to it (theirs will face down the path) and much closer together. So to me it means I will effectively loose some privacy, although I suspect the planners will see it as insignificant, since the existence of the RoW straight past my back door is already more so. Their proposed design really doesn't give any alternative new position for their back door, which could have created a bit more privacy. It'd be nice if the RoW has some leverage/bargaining power towards these matters, or if I could trade it for them not objecting to some of my future plans.

Neighbourly relations aren't great (only with them, everyone else gets on well), and I don't want to be involved in any more bun fights, especially if it none of the above are realistic outcomes, and if they could just get the existing RoW struck off as spurious.

The entire path was originally owned by the end property (where the open end of the path meets the public highway), and all the mid terraces had a RoW specified over it. Ownership of the path has been broken up piecemeal over the years, and each time a part was sold off, all the RoWs were transferred over each time. The title deeds to their section of path even have some other rights granted in it which only involve my property and another one of the neighbours, that make no sense at all in the context of the land that they pertain to.

[mjb1]

blueg33 said:

Personally I would be telling them that they can't do it and inviting them to sort it out, but I wouldn't lose sleep either.

Whatever happens, the Op needs to advise them formally NOW that they will be derogating his right of way as he has a duty to mitigate their losses and to let them keep going he would fail in that duty and be in a much weaker position

When they said that they were intending to extend there, I did tell them that there was still a RoW and they couldn't just build on it. Their response was that they didn't see any issue. All went quiet for a couple of months, then I received the planning notice about it. Haven't seen or spoken to them since, but given the way the previous discussion went, there's little point me just having another friendly chat with them. Next step is something formal and in writing, probably involving a solicitor.

TA14 said:

mjb1 said:

My RoW over their path goes literally no where once it reaches the far side of their property.

What do you mean? It must go somewhere: road, building, cliff, MOD missile testing etc.

It goes into the wall of the neighbour's house the other side (another extension built a very long time ago, which also possibly infringed the path/RoW). Wall built to the boundary and all his access is from the other side now.

Busa mav said:

Have a look at the application form they submitted to the planners, at the very end there is a question asking about ownership of the entire site.

If you have a right of way over this land, they should have served a notice on you, if they haven't, contact the council and let them know that the forms are incorrect and they will stop the application there and then.

There's a a question specifically about public RoW in the middle of the application, but this isn't public, only private. At the end there's the certification section, where they state that nobody except the applicant is the freehold owner, don't think section is anything to do with RoWs though?

Their design/access statement mentions that the neighbour beyond them has relinquished their RoW over the path (who they bought it from, so entirely possible, although it's in the charges section of the title deeds but not detailed, just says "Note: copy filed"). They conveniently don't mention in the application that there other RoWs still in place. I'll try and speak to the planning officer about it, but suspect they'll say it's not a planning matter?

Reality is, I bought the house knowing that there was a shared pedestrian access behind it, and neither of us could extend rearwards. I was fine with that, had no interest in extending mine, and comforted to know that the neighbours wouldn't be able to build something overbearing. Now they're just riding roughshod over it.

Another concern is the disruption it'll cause. They've been 'renovating' (practically rebuilt) the property over the last 3 years. It's not their main home, so the work has been done piecemeal over that time - random disruptions, a flurry of work, then quiet again). For at least a year it was like living next to a building site with sporadically cement mixers, grinders, kango hammers on the party wall going on (they literally broke though it at one point). Just when I thought the disturbance was all over, here comes round 2!

Part of the work involves excavating a path that's within two feet of the boundary. The gardens raise away from the houses very steeply, so at one point their new path will be about 8 feet lower than ground level on my side. There is a retaining wall on the boundary, but I'm concerned that they are going to undermine it. Not sure if this qualifies as a party wall matter or not?