A-AvantGarde
MB Enthusiast
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- Nov 11, 2003
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- South Bucks
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Any property law experts (or pointers to anyone that is knowledgeable in this area)?
The road that we live in a private road (not maintained by the council). A neighbouring property has just applied to the council to relocate their vehicular access from the main road and into our road. This would require access over our private road and for a dropped kerb on a pavement owned by our development.
Background
We live in a new(ish) cul-de-sac of circa 12 houses. They were built about 9 years ago in the garden of an original house (that was initially acquired by the developers for the development).
We have a Residents Management Company (RMC) that own our Private road, pavement and bollard lighting. There are also some small landscaped areas that we are responsible for.
The RMC was managed by a sister company of the developers for a few years and then became inactive (they didn’t charge us for the last 5 years or so).
We are now taking over control of the RMC and need a minimum of two directors (we currently have 5 residents interested).
Issues:
We know that this is a Private Road, the local council have confirmed that this and therefore not maintained by the County Council. We have a conveyance plan which clearly shows the areas owned by the RMC. The original planning application for the entire development had 22 spaces (which includes a few garages) for the 12 new houses and 4 spaces for the original house. The private road is used to access the orginal house and the 12 new houses.
We have 3 key issues, mainly revolving around parking! – as always a perennial issue
However these parking issues are resultant from a number of issues:
1. Some residents have 4 and even 6 cars! As a result a couple of houses had subsequently had dropped kerbs installed (without approval from the management company – namely because it was dormant at the time) and converted some of their landscaped area or garden to parking spaces. Should we get them to get retrospective permission from the RMC? As it’s a private road should they also put in an application with the council (even though it’s a private road) – Just thinking ahead to try help my neighbours in-case they encounter any issues if / when they want to sell in the future.
2. The front driveway for the house that had the land on which our houses have been built on on showed as having 4 parking spaces and 2 visitor spaces for our development.
However, when the developer sold the original house following the completion of the development, the new owner of this property then constructed a wall and installed electric gates which now encloses all 6 of these parking spaces. At the time we tried to find out from the developer whether this was permissible given that we understood that there were no general permitted development rights left on this development. We were unable to find any submitted planning application to construct the wall and install the gates? Speaking with other neighbours it was claimed that the developer ‘sold’ these visitor spaces to the new owner. We kept hitting dead ends and nobody at the developers seemed interested or inclined to pick up this issue.
We checked with the Land Registry and they state that there doesn’t appear to be a title registered for the private road / land owned by the RMC. They have said we can submit a SIM request to check additional records – is this worth doing? They did state that the marked up conveyance plan would be enough to show our boundary and areas of responsibility.
Assuming these two visitor spaces were ours (i.e. the RMC) is there a risk that the owner of this property could claim adverse possession for these additional two spaces by having the spaces enclosed with this wall? I think they need to have 12 clear years?
Unfortunately the conveyance plan (which clearly shows the areas owned by the RMC) which was supplied to us by the developer doesn’t show these two visitor spaces. Is it worth getting a copy of the title register for this original house (to see if it shows these visitor spaces not being part of their boundary?)
3. Now the main issue – the house adjacent to the other side of our private road has now submitted a new planning application for new access to be created to their property from our road. Incidentally, the owner of this house has just extended their property considerably and in their original planning application clearly stated no change to vehicular access.
In their new planning application for the change in vehicular access they state “At the moment access to our property is on XXXXX Road (AXXX), which is very busy and we have had a great deal of difficulty coming in and out of the driveway safely. We would like the access to move to XXXX Close which is on the left hand side of our house and is a much more quiet road. The property on the other side of XXXX Close has already done this so there is a precedent already set."
My understanding is that ultimately, the planning consent is not permission to create the access on to a private/public road. They still need permission/licence from the road/land owner, so the RMC in our case? At this stage we’ve not been approached for this permission to be sought. I would have thought that they should have found this out themselves and approached us prior to submitting the planning application.
Assuming they get planning permission, I assume that they could simply start to create their access (despite not owning the land nor having any form of right of access. We just want to understand the correct way of doing this and how to stop them in the event that the RMC haven't agreed the correct way forward (including the legalities regarding access over the road etc.)
Many thanks in advance!
The road that we live in a private road (not maintained by the council). A neighbouring property has just applied to the council to relocate their vehicular access from the main road and into our road. This would require access over our private road and for a dropped kerb on a pavement owned by our development.
Background
We live in a new(ish) cul-de-sac of circa 12 houses. They were built about 9 years ago in the garden of an original house (that was initially acquired by the developers for the development).
We have a Residents Management Company (RMC) that own our Private road, pavement and bollard lighting. There are also some small landscaped areas that we are responsible for.
The RMC was managed by a sister company of the developers for a few years and then became inactive (they didn’t charge us for the last 5 years or so).
We are now taking over control of the RMC and need a minimum of two directors (we currently have 5 residents interested).
Issues:
We know that this is a Private Road, the local council have confirmed that this and therefore not maintained by the County Council. We have a conveyance plan which clearly shows the areas owned by the RMC. The original planning application for the entire development had 22 spaces (which includes a few garages) for the 12 new houses and 4 spaces for the original house. The private road is used to access the orginal house and the 12 new houses.
We have 3 key issues, mainly revolving around parking! – as always a perennial issue
However these parking issues are resultant from a number of issues:
1. Some residents have 4 and even 6 cars! As a result a couple of houses had subsequently had dropped kerbs installed (without approval from the management company – namely because it was dormant at the time) and converted some of their landscaped area or garden to parking spaces. Should we get them to get retrospective permission from the RMC? As it’s a private road should they also put in an application with the council (even though it’s a private road) – Just thinking ahead to try help my neighbours in-case they encounter any issues if / when they want to sell in the future.
2. The front driveway for the house that had the land on which our houses have been built on on showed as having 4 parking spaces and 2 visitor spaces for our development.
However, when the developer sold the original house following the completion of the development, the new owner of this property then constructed a wall and installed electric gates which now encloses all 6 of these parking spaces. At the time we tried to find out from the developer whether this was permissible given that we understood that there were no general permitted development rights left on this development. We were unable to find any submitted planning application to construct the wall and install the gates? Speaking with other neighbours it was claimed that the developer ‘sold’ these visitor spaces to the new owner. We kept hitting dead ends and nobody at the developers seemed interested or inclined to pick up this issue.
We checked with the Land Registry and they state that there doesn’t appear to be a title registered for the private road / land owned by the RMC. They have said we can submit a SIM request to check additional records – is this worth doing? They did state that the marked up conveyance plan would be enough to show our boundary and areas of responsibility.
Assuming these two visitor spaces were ours (i.e. the RMC) is there a risk that the owner of this property could claim adverse possession for these additional two spaces by having the spaces enclosed with this wall? I think they need to have 12 clear years?
Unfortunately the conveyance plan (which clearly shows the areas owned by the RMC) which was supplied to us by the developer doesn’t show these two visitor spaces. Is it worth getting a copy of the title register for this original house (to see if it shows these visitor spaces not being part of their boundary?)
3. Now the main issue – the house adjacent to the other side of our private road has now submitted a new planning application for new access to be created to their property from our road. Incidentally, the owner of this house has just extended their property considerably and in their original planning application clearly stated no change to vehicular access.
In their new planning application for the change in vehicular access they state “At the moment access to our property is on XXXXX Road (AXXX), which is very busy and we have had a great deal of difficulty coming in and out of the driveway safely. We would like the access to move to XXXX Close which is on the left hand side of our house and is a much more quiet road. The property on the other side of XXXX Close has already done this so there is a precedent already set."
My understanding is that ultimately, the planning consent is not permission to create the access on to a private/public road. They still need permission/licence from the road/land owner, so the RMC in our case? At this stage we’ve not been approached for this permission to be sought. I would have thought that they should have found this out themselves and approached us prior to submitting the planning application.
Assuming they get planning permission, I assume that they could simply start to create their access (despite not owning the land nor having any form of right of access. We just want to understand the correct way of doing this and how to stop them in the event that the RMC haven't agreed the correct way forward (including the legalities regarding access over the road etc.)
Many thanks in advance!