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1 minute ago, ProDave said:

I understand what they are doing, but if they have been using it for access for more than 10 years, would Adverse Possession not apply?

 

It's a few years ago, but IIRC, adverse possession didn't apply because the owners of the houses hadn't had exclusive use of that strip of land, they had just driven and walked over it for access, and none of them had made any attempt to have that strip included within their boundary, I think because they assumed it belonged to the council.

 

I do know there was a court case planned and they lost, or ended up settling out of court.  IIRC, they settled with the company for less than the original demand (a figure of around £10k per house was mentioned, I think).  It caused a stir, locally, as the residents were outraged than something like this could happen, decades after the houses were built.

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1 hour ago, JSHarris said:

 

It's a few years ago, but IIRC, adverse possession didn't apply because the owners of the houses hadn't had exclusive use of that strip of land, they had just driven and walked over it for access, and none of them had made any attempt to have that strip included within their boundary, I think because they assumed it belonged to the council.

 

I do know there was a court case planned and they lost, or ended up settling out of court.  IIRC, they settled with the company for less than the original demand (a figure of around £10k per house was mentioned, I think).  It caused a stir, locally, as the residents were outraged than something like this could happen, decades after the houses were built.

 

In general they would get access by prescription after 20 years use.

 

I think cases mentioned will be either when permission has been given and is withdrawn, or in the case of Common Land.

 

eg This one where the National Trust were the owner of the land, and people had not checked their deeds and facts sufficiently well when buying.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/3319695/Going-home-Thatll-be-8000-please-.-.-..html

 

To me it seems a bit strange people with 400k or so homes having had hundreds of percent value uplift complaining about a 2% charge to regularise their access. I can see they would be cross, however the charge is a relative fleabite. 

 

F

 

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49 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

 

In MK you could remove 4762 trees and no one could tell the difference... O.o

 

@JSHarris

 

Hope I am not nitpicking, but how did they buy land which wasn't owned by anyone? Who was the counterparty?

 

Was the enforcement just a scam?

 

Hi Ferdinand,

 

I am not sure i get you on this :)
 

Our land is sandwiched between my inlaws house... and what was a 60mph A Road through Milton Keynes.


What happened was about 10 years ago MK council started to develop the land on the other side of the road and its now all an estate with semi-detached
2/3 bedroom dwellings on it ...i know the land there was bought by a developer and across the road... I could not connect to any of the services that feed that estate
as I was told (for example) that the services were not yet "adopted" by Western Power, or Anglian Water yet ...as they are technically still building houses there!
Lots of new houses in MK Ferdinand !

But the Road was until early this year "controlled" (if thats the right word) by the Highways agency ...who at the time were reluctant to grant more accesses due to the then
high Speed limit ....but in April this speed was reduced to 30mph and the road was formally adopted by MK council...which has meant getting an access agreed a LOT easier, as traffic has virtually dissapeared due to management schemes and the like that have been put in place and now they use the parallel A road that is still high speed.

 

I was originally speaking to the Highways agency (last year) ...but am now told that the Road, The verges, Trees planted there et al ...are all now the responsibility of MK council ...well they are on my side anyway 

 

..hope that helps 

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19 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

 

IN general they would get access by prescription after 20 years use.

 

 

 

I've been trying to track down the news story, to no avail.  From what I can remember I think a part of the problem was that the land in question had had several owners, even though none of them actually knew they owned it, as successors in title to the original landowner.  It was this trail that the company tracked down.  I'm pretty sure the "access by prescription" didn't apply, but I don't know why.  If it had then I'm sure the house owners would have tried to use it, rather than see to go to court.

 

The bottom line is that no one should ever make any assumption as to access rights, unless they have it in some form of legally-binding agreement.  Trusting a local authority to provide accurate information is usually unwise, in my experience, as they often don't seem to have a clue, and may well say things, or even write them in correspondence, that aren't correct.

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10 hours ago, PeterW said:

 

Ok so that's very different to a tree survey ..!!

 

all you need is the standard detail from BS5837 about protection of root zones and that you will use a fixed fence etc and you will be fine. It's all pretty standard stuff ...!

 

Sorry Peter,

 

i think thats what i bought and received ...it cost about £500.

Very nice chap, he certainly knew his TREES! and he measured and plotted them and stuff 
and even looked at neighbours trees adjoining and stuff. there are no BIG trees on the plot ...in fact no trees at all, but there are those hawthorns 
at the border (albeit on the other side of the fence) and one ash tree that is regularly cut and trimmed anyway on a neighbours land

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10 minutes ago, Ed_MK said:

 

Hi Ferdinand,

 

I am not sure i get you on this :)
 

Our land is sandwiched between my inlaws house... and what was a 60mph A Road through Milton Keynes.


What happened was about 10 years ago MK council started to develop the land on the other side of the road and its now all an estate with semi-detached
2/3 bedroom dwellings on it ...i know the land there was bought by a developer and across the road... I could not connect to any of the services that feed that estate
as I was told (for example) that the services were not yet "adopted" by Western Power, or Anglian Water yet ...as they are technically still building houses there!
Lots of new houses in MK Ferdinand !

But the Road was until early this year "controlled" (if thats the right word) by the Highways agency ...who at the time were reluctant to grant more accesses due to the then
high Speed limit ....but in April this speed was reduced to 30mph and the road was formally adopted by MK council...which has meant getting an access agreed a LOT easier, as traffic has virtually dissapeared due to management schemes and the like that have been put in place and now they use the parallel A road that is still high speed.

 

I was originally speaking to the Highways agency (last year) ...but am now told that the Road, The verges, Trees planted there et al ...are all now the responsibility of MK council ...well they are on my side anyway 

 

..hope that helps 

 

Just having a side-debate with Jeremy as to how "charges for access" are legally possible. We divert sometimes. Apologies.

 

The Milton Keynes quip is remembering how hard it is in MK to find houses there for the trees. We used to go down when my dad was building the 'ice cream cones' in Bletchley Market.

 

2345336562_ebf521c108_b.jpg

 

Edited by Ferdinand
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Just now, JSHarris said:

 

I've been trying to track down the news story, to no avail.  From what I can remember I think a part of the problem was that the land in question had had several owners, even though none of them actually knew they owned it, as successors in title to the original landowner.  It was this trail that the company tracked down.  I'm pretty sure the "access by prescription" didn't apply, but I don't know why.  If it had then I'm sure the house owners would have tried to use it, rather than see to go to court.

 

The bottom line is that no one should ever make any assumption as to access rights, unless they have it in some form of legally-binding agreement.  Trusting a local authority to provide accurate information is usually unwise, in my experience, as they often don't seem to have a clue, and may well say things, or even write them in correspondence, that aren't correct.

 

Well the plot at moment does not have access ...and probably never did (at least not in 100 years)
If i look at old maps it was in a parcel of land bought by a developer and in the end became "islanded"
and was sold to my inlaws as part of their land, and they used it to grow some fruit trees and exercise 

a pony ..a long time ago. It was "gifted" to my wife and thats how we got it

....At the time it was just for making an allotment or something, as there was NO CHANCE of getting access to build something
as the highways agency would not consider allowing a connection to that side of the road whilst it was 60+ MPH...

to b honest they were tearing up there FAR faster :( So i dont think I would have liked to have to emerge either !

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ah...

the days when markets still thrived !

before eBay and Amazon and them pesky "pound Shops"

 

the one near my old house changed its name from "PoundWorld" to "Around a Pound"
as I believe trading standards were objecting as they sold items for mostly 2.99 and 3.99
and even leccy lawnmowers for 29.99

 

LOL

 

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In this case one point to at least be aware of is that no one tries to enforce the more demanding visibility splay rules for Highways on you, as opposed to the easier ones for Streets.

 

That may or may not be material, depending on whether there are bends in your road (yes, I know ... MK !).

 

Edited by Ferdinand
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1 hour ago, JSHarris said:

 

I'm not sure.  From what was reported on the news here, the company spent some time tracing the successors in title to the land, I think.  The situation was that the landowner (a farmer, I think) had sold the building plots back in the 1950's or 60's.  At the time of the sale, the same farmer owned the lane that provided access to these houses.  At some point the lane was adopted, and the local authority then owned the lane, but not all of the wide verges on either side.  The farmer died and the land he owned was presumably sold, but not the strips of grass verge, as there was an assumption that these belonged to the local authority, I assume.

 

The company discovered this discrepancy, and somehow managed to buy the remaining strips of grass verge without either the residents or the local authority being aware.  The first anyone knew of the new owners of the verges was when the company made the demand for payment in return for access rights.

 

 

 

I hope that is not the case :(
I take it that if the council do agree the access and house is built that later on it technically 
would be the COUNCILS right to pay any fees levied, as it was on their advice and instruction 
that a build was carried out

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I think your solicitor would be very wise to make sure that the right of access is enshrined in a legally binding form, so that there is little or no chance of someone later using the ransom strip technique to extract a lot of money from you.  You need to positively identify who owns any land between your own land and the highway.  Do not ever rely on the Land Registry Title Plans for this, as there are neither legally binding, in terms of boundary definitions, nor are they accurate (they are often very inaccurate, in my experience).

 

I suspect that your solicitor will need to do a legal search to find the title history for the land, the road and the grass verge over which you want access, and then track down exactly who owns what.  The latter can be a challenge.  There is a strip of land alongside the stream that runs in front of our new build, between the stream and the lane on the opposite side from us, that no one seems to own.  The parish council have been trying to track down the ownership for years, as it's overgrown with willow and alder and needs to be cut back to reduce the flood risk.  The best they've been able to do is track down that it belonged to Lord Pembroke, but that when the Pembroke estate sold a lot of land (including the land our house is now on) in 1916, that particular strip alongside the stream was not mentioned, so there has been an ongoing legal struggle to determine if it still belongs to the Pembroke Estate (they say it doesn't!) or someone else.

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1 hour ago, Ed_MK said:

 

Sorry Peter,

 

i think thats what i bought and received ...it cost about £500.

Very nice chap, he certainly knew his TREES! and he measured and plotted them and stuff 
and even looked at neighbours trees adjoining and stuff. there are no BIG trees on the plot ...in fact no trees at all, but there are those hawthorns 
at the border (albeit on the other side of the fence) and one ash tree that is regularly cut and trimmed anyway on a neighbours land

 

Ouch ...!!!! I charge about £200 for the same report .... :ph34r: 

 

Think I need to put my rates up .... 

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2 hours ago, Ed_MK said:

 

I hope that is not the case :(
I take it that if the council do agree the access and house is built that later on it technically 
would be the COUNCILS right to pay any fees levied, as it was on their advice and instruction 
that a build was carried out

 

What did you say the postcode was? :ph34r:

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Do get the access checked out and a legal right of access from MK council drawn up.

 

We had a potential access issue buying our plot. The plot was last sold in 1980 (with PP but was never built on) and then, the road was a private track. The plot came with a right of access to use that private track. In the intervening time the track was upgraded and adopted as a public road.  My solicitor made the point of checking the new public road was indeed in the same place as the old private track. Had the new public road been built to a different route there could well have been a strip of land between the plot and the road that we did not own.

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18 hours ago, Ed_MK said:

Both the verge and the trees growing on it are the property of MK council I am told. They recently adopted the road.

 

That's a bit strange. Adoption is just the process of assuming responsibility for maintenance. If they already owned it then they were already responsible.  Who did they adopt it from?

 

We have a wide verge in front of our place. It was eventually confirmed as part of the highway. 

 

These might be of interest...

 

http://www.oss.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/C10-Highway-Verges.pdf

 

 

Quote

It is to be borne in mind that the questions who owns the soil of the roadside verge, and whether it is part of the highway, are quite distinct. Regardless of who owns the soil, the public may have a right of passage over it, ie it may be part of the highway.

 

 

Quote

When an owner has left such a strip alongside the road, with the intention that the public should be able to use it for passage, and the public has so used it, there is a presumption that he intended to dedicate the strip as part of the highway, and such strips must in many cases be deemed to have been so dedicated. In that event, the strip alongside the road, is just as much part of the highwayas the metalled road itself.
(Continues with details of some exceptions).

 

I would write to the council/highway authority and ask them to confirm that the verge is part of the highway. Include a copy of the land registry plan and highlight the verge in red.

 

If they confirm the verge is part of the highway then you don't need their permission to cross it.

 

If they say it's not part of the highway then you will need their permission to cross it and I would get that in writing and file it with your deeds.

 

 

Edited by Temp
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TBH I would also think about talking to the Highways Agency and ask them for the map that shows Highways Land, which will be a green area marked on a map of the road boundaries.

 

I have forgotten what the map is called ... Adopted Highways Land perhaps. That may be a double check as to what the Council has acquired (they may be overloaded and make a mistake). We had one consultant overlay this with several sets of deeds to prove where some things actually were, and that Highways Land was not part of a couple of gardens.

 

The person to talk to is the County Council Highways Officer for that one. Be nice to them because you cannot compel cooperation iirc.

 

Ferdinand

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Adopted might be the wrong word ....but it is what they used to me on the phone.

Basically PRIOR to declassification (From a Major A Road) - National Speed limit ...I needed to talk to the Highways Agency
..and I was doing so ....with little success due to the restrictions they had for driveway access onto faster roads.

 

But in April ..I was told the road was now "declassified" and a new speed limit of 30mph ....and also 20mph for schools that have/are opening
further along its stretch ....When I asked could i now re-apply ...I was told that the "road is now fully adopted and maintained by the local council and no longer the HA, SO I should address all enquiries and applications to them"

 

In the past i was trying to get  "secton 278?" IIRC ...but after rasing the issue at the Preplanning Application meeting i was told that now all i had to do was to

"inform the council of my intent to access" ...PRIOR to Full application submission ...I think the phrase they used was ...give notice?

In fact i just found the PDF and I have attached the relevant section ...I hope I am not breaking rules by posting a official document ..If I am please delete

 

 

Pre-app_advice_segment.JPG

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7 hours ago, PeterW said:

 

Ouch ...!!!! I charge about £200 for the same report .... :ph34r: 

 

Think I need to put my rates up .... 

 

Nooooooooo!

I hate it when i waste money :(:(

 

Please tell me you also do Soil Surveys Phase 1 Desktop Ones .....Pretty Please

LOL

 

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1 hour ago, Ed_MK said:

 

Nooooooooo!

I hate it when i waste money :(:(

 

Please tell me you also do Soil Surveys Phase 1 Desktop Ones .....Pretty Please

LOL

 

 

Nope ..! Only trees ..! 

 

Soil should be a fairly simple one for you to sort as there aren't too many things that can go wrong on a desk survey unless it's an old mine or quarry ..! 

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Hi again, @Ed_MK

 

It is fine to post a portion of a document (or somebody else's material) for criticism and review under Copyright Law.

 

This has been a slightly involved thread. I think what we are all saying is explore the detail and take care, as these are potentially shark-infested waters (so to speak), and it can be easy to get bitten by some element of officialdom making an erroneous assumption as they may be out of sync with what has changed (or not).

 

Let me make a note on terminology, ownership, and rights for future browsers - you seem to be quite well up on it yourself perhaps having learnt from your experience (!), and know how to find answers if not yet what all the answers may potentially be. This is long but I hope helpful. It is based on my experience so may not be totally complete. This is about England but should be more or less valid in the other UK countries.

 

"Adopted Highway Land" as I called it is land over which the Highways Authority (perhaps as the County Highways Department) holds rights. They do not need to own the land, and in may be rights that were put in place eg half a century to allow for widening a road or even a motorway. In the case I mentioned above, the owners of the gardens had assumed that land between their fences and the surfaced pavement was part of their gardens and had forgotten that it had been designated Highway Land back in the 1970s or before. 

 

"Adopted Road" is a road which the Council has accepted meets the required standards, and has taken on as a public road to maintain. 

 

"A Classified Road" is (I think) one with an alphanumerical designation eg B612 ot A12. An Unclassified Road is one without an alphanumerical designation. Whether a road is classified can have effects on what the Council can and cannot stop you doing. One example is that a Councll Planner informed me that they could not stop me installing a gateway / opening onto an unclassified road, but that I may need Planning Permission for a dropped kerb which must meet accepted official specifications (defined by I think the District Council - presumably part of the regs for "adopted" roads).

 

(Aside: that opens a fascinating opportunity where people have a garden level with the road but no verge on an unclassified road ... can they just create a new driveway? Interesting rurally but also where the front of a house is on (say) Railway Cuttings or a noisy main road, and the back is on a nice little unclassified lane. Can a self-creared driveway - and persuading whom it may concern to change the address - give a value uplift?).

 

The points for you I think are:

 

1 - Your road adoption, and possibly land ownership etc has changed, and that people may get the wrong end of the right (or wrong) stick, and apply regulations to you that may not apply in the circumstances - because they are confused. You may need to inform them of what is the correct situation. Or your argument about what is the correct situation may persuade them to do what you want.

 

2 - There may (or may not) be opportunities for you to make creative use of this ambiguity to achieve what you want to achieve.

 

3 - There is a difference between ownership of land, and the existence of rights over it (at which point we get into Rights of Way, Easements and different types of Wayleaves). The ownership of the subsoil may be unbundled from the ownership of the surface - see the parallel with ownership of mineral rights etc. In the case I mentioned the developer was within "highway Land", and so had no need to negotiate expensive agreements with the frontagers to purchase 3 feet of land to widen the road.

 

4 - The Council can restrict how you do your development and what you do in the future via Planning Permission, subject to Planning Law, but there are things which they may neglect to restrict (but would have if they had thought about it) that you may be able to do in the future.

 

Ferdinand

 

Examples of possible ambiguity maps from Norfolk County council who have a useful online service in this area.

 

Highway Boundaries and features:

 

20170823-norfolk-highway-boundary-cross-section.thumb.jpg.8950f39f27f63eca898e5fe932fba696.jpg

 

Eaton Street, Crindleford, Norfolk is an example just picked off the map.

 

Map of Highway Land - Rights are, I think, over the green shaded area.

 

20170823-norfolk-crindeford-eaton-street-map-of-highway-land.jpg.182d40c1d371a1991f55e4d3590aae35.jpg

 

General View from Google

 

20170823-norfolk-crindeford-eaton-street-view.thumb.jpg.a313a7aaee18a1063619e4ad71c4586c.jpg

 

Detail from Google

 

So where is the boundary of Highway Land, and who owns what? Are the various boundaries at 1, 2, 3, or 4? I can see how the householder could come to regard up to say 2 as part of their garden, even if wrong.They may even own up to 2, but the Highways Dept have the right to turn it into a wider road.

 

It could be anything, and in fact the householder could well own right up to the middle of the road, but with rights for the road to exist on that part of the land.

 

Looking at the next one along, that fence could be a creative garden extension, where the extra bit of verge may even have been claimed under Adverse Possession. through exclusion of others for a number of years. But adverse possession affects ownership not Highway Rights for a wider road or pavement to be added later.

 

20170823-norfolk-crindeford-eaton-street-detail.jpg.4b0146bb51d513296ed4f0a623b08384.jpg

 

Solution

 

In fact, if you look at a slightly different map and photo, the highway land stops a couple of houses along. We still cannot tell who owns what, however, without checking the Land Registry. But it shows how easy it is to be confused without doing the homework.

 

I would like to see that Highway Land and the wide verge used as part of a safely segregated cycle track.

 

20170823-norfolk-crindeford-eaton-street-map-of-highway-land-2.jpg.772467e58ba47289de25dc215b93e840.jpg

 

20170823-norfolk-crindeford-eaton-street-view-2.thumb.jpg.4ccde877aedfa05dbc2831eee6e9f48f.jpg

 

 

 

 

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