Road maintenance contribution covenant

[geeks]

We have a 5% contribution covenant for the farm lane we use to access our property, so far so good.

The farmer is tenanted and has complained to the landlord (read, the council) that there is an issue with the road, which there is but only on the part that they use, I agree it is quite bad and there is potential for a lorry to tip or his machinery. The council have finally come out to look at repairing it after him badgering them since before we moved here, we moved in three years ago.

Council have now sent us a letter telling us the lane needs repair, we have a covenant, they will send us a bill when the work completes which amounts to £X's. Amount is small, we can afford it, however, seems to us this is somewhat taking the piss for a few reasons.

1. We haven't requested the repair, our access is just fine (for context I can drive the R8 down from the main road to our driveway just fine)
2. The damage is past where our right of access ends as per our deeds.
3. The covenant is fairly specific on what our 5% contribution is towards and details that it only applies to the right of access portion of the road.
4. We have no details at all of the work being carried out - Even if it was repair work to our part of the access is it unreasonable to have sight of the repair works including what and how this will be repaired?

Have included a very quick mock-up of the layout. Our right of way access goes all the way to the main road and stops at the end of our driveway (long black line). The damage to the lane location is marked with the arrow.

Have sent the council an email regarding all this as have the other neighbour who have also received a letter about this. Are we both right to feel aggrieved about this?

Edited by geeks on Thursday 14th August 10:17

[768]

geeks said:

3. The covenant is fairly specific on what our 5% contribution is towards and details that it only applies to the right of access portion of the road.

I'd imagine a lot hinges on the wording of this.

[geeks]

Yeah that's fair and as I say it is quite specific and easy to follow, have had a call back from the council this morning, the farm manager for our track is on leave until Monday and they have asked them to call us, she did seem pretty surprised that we had no knowledge of this prior to us receiving a "we are doing some work and will bill you when we are done" letter, she also agreed that she would have been pretty annoyed at the tone of the letter and lack of information. She also confirmed that our contributions stop where our access stops. What she was unable to confirm was what exactly was being done and when it would be done.

[Panamax]

5% from you. Where does the other 95% come from?

20 houses at 5% each? or 3 houses at 50%, 45% and 5% respectively?

My point is this - your 5% probably relates to the whole road simply because it would otherwise be very awkward to calculate and charge different shares for different stretches of road.

Is your "right" to use the whole length of the road or only the bit as far as your house? If the former, it's almost inconceivable that your share of cash contribution won't relate to the whole thing.

[geeks]

Panamax said:

5% from you. Where does the other 95% come from?

20 houses at 5% each? or 3 houses at 50%, 45% and 5% respectively?

The covenant doesn't detail this however from talking to the opposite neighbour, it seems 5% from us, 20% from them and the "landlord" picks up the remaining 75% as per my opening post there are just three houses on our track.

Panamax said:

My point is this - your 5% probably relates to the whole road simply because it would otherwise be very awkward to calculate and charge different shares for different stretches of road.

The covenant is specific to the charge only relating to our access to the road which is outlined in my first post

Panamax said:

Is your "right" to use the whole length of the road or only the bit as far as your house? If the former, it's almost inconceivable that your share of cash contribution won't relate to the whole thing.

No our right of access is only to use what is marked in my opening post. This is how it is marked in our deeds.

[NDA]

For good neighbourliness, I'd probably pay.

I used to live on a long private driveway/track - 4 houses at the bottom, me at the top... I owned the top bit, the bottom bit was 'unadopted'. There was a ratio worked out for maintenance of the unadopted part that worked out quite well. I used 100% of it (even though I owned my bit), the lowest house, something like 20%.

Probably hard to change your system though.

ETA, I realise you don't drive on the part that needs to be repaired - but then neither did my neighbours lower down the road. Not sure if that makes sense?

[geeks]

NDA said:

For good neighbourliness, I'd probably pay.

I used to live on a long private driveway/track - 4 houses at the bottom, me at the top... I owned the top bit, the bottom bit was 'unadopted'. There was a ratio worked out for maintenance of the unadopted part that worked out quite well. I used 100% of it (even though I owned my bit), the lowest house, something like 20%.

Probably hard to change your system though.

ETA, I realise you don't drive on the part that needs to be repaired - but then neither did my neighbours lower down the road. Not sure if that makes sense?

The road itself is owned by the council who lease it and the farm to the farmer, we have right of access as far as our driveway after that there is a farm gate and we have no further access. Frankly I am not minded to pay for the upkeep of the farm that's what their tenancy is for, if it were an agreement between 3 private houses I would agree with you, but this isn't about being neighbourly it's about what's fair as per our deeds.

The damage is well past what we we have access to and the amount of farm traffic over it is extensive with the farmers own machinery (tractors, combines etc), when the crops are collected we have a lorry going past every 20 minutes for a solid 48 to 72 hours twice a year (sometimes more depending on what has been grown). This isn't a complaint of living next to a working farm, we actually really enjoy watching what happens and how the scenery changes over the year even the lorries although annoying when you (well the wife ) are trying to sleep don't really trouble us.

[JimM169]

I wouldn't want to be paying for something I couldn't use either!
By the sounds of it the only one that benefits is the farmer and he's the only one not paying for it! (Assuming 5% you, 20% neighbour and 75% landlord figures above are correct)

[geeks]

JimM169 said:

I wouldn't want to be paying for something I couldn't use either!
By the sounds of it the only one that benefits is the farmer and he's the only one not paying for it! (Assuming 5% you, 20% neighbour and 75% landlord figures above are correct)

Exactly. It is correct, farmer has confirmed that road repair and maintenance is included as part of their lease, he was also pretty gobsmacked that we were being asked to contribute

[Chrisgr31]

geeks said:

Exactly. It is correct, farmer has confirmed that road repair and maintenance is included as part of their lease, he was also pretty gobsmacked that we were being asked to contribute

Not as gobsmacked as the other neighbour who is paying 4 times as much as you for less access distance!

[geeks]

Chrisgr31 said:

geeks said:

Exactly. It is correct, farmer has confirmed that road repair and maintenance is included as part of their lease, he was also pretty gobsmacked that we were being asked to contribute

Not as gobsmacked as the other neighbour who is paying 4 times as much as you for less access distance!

Very much so, I sympathise with them but it is in the deeds and they signed it, not my circus, not my monkeys, (the council run the clown show ). Their access stops about 40 meters before ours as that is where their driveway is and is even further away from the only bit that seems to need repairing.

We are now waiting for the one person who can go through all of this with us to return from annual leave, likely we wont hear anything for a while, will try to update thread when we do for those that are interested.

[Inbox]

NDA said:

For good neighbourliness, I'd probably pay.

I used to live on a long private driveway/track - 4 houses at the bottom, me at the top... I owned the top bit, the bottom bit was 'unadopted'. There was a ratio worked out for maintenance of the unadopted part that worked out quite well. I used 100% of it (even though I owned my bit), the lowest house, something like 20%.

Probably hard to change your system though.

ETA, I realise you don't drive on the part that needs to be repaired - but then neither did my neighbours lower down the road. Not sure if that makes sense?

This, keeping good neighbourly relations is the top priority in all this, arguing the toss could well have long term consequences as goodwill just evaporates.

[geeks]

Inbox said:

This, keeping good neighbourly relations is the top priority in all this, arguing the toss could well have long term consequences as goodwill just evaporates.

Ok once again, there are no neighbourly relations here to really consider, it is us and the opposite neighbour vs the council.
The damage to the road is past our access, we don't use that section and the covenant makes it pretty clear that we aren't responsible for it
The farmer doesn't contribute its included in his lease of the farm, the land owner/landlord is the council

If they were redoing the farm track from the main road to our access then yeah that would be fair enough or if they were going to repair the bridge over the culvert (not that it needs it) then fair enough. But we as of right now have just been sent a letter with a bill with no context, if I sent you a random bill, told you that you have to pay it but I wasn't going to tell you what that bill was for until after I had done whatever it was I was going to do, you might rightly have some questions as well.

[Inbox]

geeks said:

Inbox said:

This, keeping good neighbourly relations is the top priority in all this, arguing the toss could well have long term consequences as goodwill just evaporates.

Ok once again, there are no neighbourly relations here to really consider, it is us and the opposite neighbour vs the council.
The damage to the road is past our access, we don't use that section and the covenant makes it pretty clear that we aren't responsible for it
The farmer doesn't contribute its included in his lease of the farm, the land owner/landlord is the council

If they were redoing the farm track from the main road to our access then yeah that would be fair enough or if they were going to repair the bridge over the culvert (not that it needs it) then fair enough. But we as of right now have just been sent a letter with a bill with no context, if I sent you a random bill, told you that you have to pay it but I wasn't going to tell you what that bill was for until after I had done whatever it was I was going to do, you might rightly have some questions as well.

I hear what you are saying, just observing that your property is furthest from the public road of all the houses that have access.

[geeks]

Inbox said:

geeks said:

Inbox said:

This, keeping good neighbourly relations is the top priority in all this, arguing the toss could well have long term consequences as goodwill just evaporates.

Ok once again, there are no neighbourly relations here to really consider, it is us and the opposite neighbour vs the council.
The damage to the road is past our access, we don't use that section and the covenant makes it pretty clear that we aren't responsible for it
The farmer doesn't contribute its included in his lease of the farm, the land owner/landlord is the council

If they were redoing the farm track from the main road to our access then yeah that would be fair enough or if they were going to repair the bridge over the culvert (not that it needs it) then fair enough. But we as of right now have just been sent a letter with a bill with no context, if I sent you a random bill, told you that you have to pay it but I wasn't going to tell you what that bill was for until after I had done whatever it was I was going to do, you might rightly have some questions as well.

I hear what you are saying, just observing that your property is furthest from the public road of all the houses that have access.

Yes it is, however (and maybe I should have included that) but some way past our property is the farmers barns where all the farming machinery and harvest are stored and where the damage actually is, is past our access and past the point our covenant applies

[Panamax]

geeks said:

from talking to the opposite neighbour, it seems 5% from us, 20% from them and the "landlord" picks up the remaining 75%

No our right of access is only to use what is marked in my opening post.

Seems pretty clear from what you've said and from the diagram that you're on the hook for 5% and should feel comfortable that it's so low.

You could check out your neighbour's property title at the Land Registry regarding their 20%. It would only cost you £3 to make an online search.

[ManicMunky]

Panamax said:

Seems pretty clear from what you've said and from the diagram that you're on the hook for 5% and should feel comfortable that it's so low.

You could check out your neighbour's property title at the Land Registry regarding their 20%. It would only cost you £3 to make an online search.

£7 now!

[geeks]

Panamax said:

geeks said:

from talking to the opposite neighbour, it seems 5% from us, 20% from them and the "landlord" picks up the remaining 75%

No our right of access is only to use what is marked in my opening post.

Panamax said:

Seems pretty clear from what you've said and from the diagram that you're on the hook for 5% and should feel comfortable that it's so low.

You could check out your neighbour's property title at the Land Registry regarding their 20%. It would only cost you £3 to make an online search.

Ok this maybe me failing to have put the main road its to the right of the map we turn off the main road onto the farm track and head towards our home along that black line, we turn right into our driveway, the arrow I have marked is where the damage is, this is towards the farmers barn, we don't drive over that, we don't have vehicle access to that, it falls outside what our covenant details as our contribution. I have adjusted it a little as maybe I haven't been clear. The red line along the track we don't have access to, this is where the damage is.

[LooneyTunes]

geeks said:

it falls outside what our covenant details as our contribution.

So just tell the council in writing that the cost of the work is nothing to do with you... if they bill you, tell them again.

[blueg33]

I would be interested to see the wording. We have a similar situation, and it is clear that we pay our percentage only of the element that we have a RoW over.

We resurfaced the lane about 6 years ago - it was £55k between 5 of us, but we obtained three quotes and the owner of the lane ran them past all of us and it was a joint decision.

If I was the op, I would be pushing the council for much more info