Rights of access on our property

[Flymodrag]

Hi there! I am looking for some advice. I have just purchased my first home... it has taken years of saving and scraping by to finally be rent free... hated people having control over me... anyway seems as though our neighbours have right of access on our land going past every window of our end of terrace house to get to thier house... they use this as thier main acces instead of using the perfectly good front door they have to pass to get round the back. We were unaware of this prior to purchasing the property and our plans for it are ruined because of this... I fear we have a battle... neighbour rents and the owner which is a housing company is just sticking to the deeds... the police have already been involved. How do I change the deed to keep these crazy people off my property. Have already had threatening behaviour from tenants... the boundary on the deed has also been moved on the property too in thier favour, we are also missing a piece of the house itself to them. But right now all we worry about is the abuse of access... have no problem giving access for service media.

hope we can find help here... I have had so many bad things happen and I'm really losing my faith in humanity...

Appreciate any help x x

[islandgirl]

The question is whether the people have a right to use the access they are using, What do your deeds say about rights of way across your land? Do not understand the bit about the deeds being changed? What did your solicitor say about all this during the purchase? Sorry you have these issues but I think the land and property experts here will need more info before they can help.

[Flymodrag]

The deeds state they have a legal right of way to use the footpath around the property. They insist on using it as thier main access which they have a right to do. We are not allowed to block it. Lock it. Or deny access. We want to change the clause on the deed so that they can only have access when they need it... not for constant foot traffic. The owners 'platform housing' will stick to the deed and not even request for thier tenant to use it minimally.

We were not aware of this access prior to purchase the of the property. We wanted to put a car Port on the side of the house which would block it. I need to have some hope that we can change the deed.

our house is the end of terrace of a block of 4 that used to be a whole block owned by the council. Our house is the only one not owned by platform housing.

Thank-you for your time on this x

[efpom]

You will need to post up the exact words of the deed itself.

[islandgirl]

I agree with EFPOM that we need to see the wording but if they have a right to "pass and repass" or simply a right of access I do not think you will be able to restrict when this is available. You will not be able to block it in any way so "minimal use" would still mean you cannot have your carport. The only solution would be getting the owners to change the deed in some way which they are unlikely to do and would certainly want payment for doing. Have you been back to your solicitor? Did they not raise this issue when they saw the deeds to the property? I think you need to contact them urgently.

[Flymodrag]

I have attached snippets from our deed. The deed has it in there... we read through the legalities and clicked a button on our online portal to say we had read them, so I am unsure whether or not this information was something we should of spotted or pointed out to us before agreeing to buy the property. Had we of known about this 'footpath' we would not of gone ahead with the purchase. We always made it clear that we would be looking to extend our property over the drive for a garage and car port. to which we were told we would need planning permission, but we were never aware it would literally have something in the deed that would affect other people using what we thought was our property to do with what we wish as long as we had planning permission. - When I rang the solicitor, they didn't seem to know or care what I was talking about. all they said was 'its not unusual for neighbours to have access rights, you will have to look into it further'

[Flymodrag]

Another concern I have, is that the fence and part of the property, is actually not correct at all according to the deed. I will attach a picture of the plan with what is actually happening... the yellow line is the fence as it is currently standing, and the orange square is a part of our property which is actually included in next doors space, instead of ours, and so instead of having a straight cut through, (as the plans on the deed state) we are missing about 4m2 of our indoor property, and a lot of garden...

Maybe some form of bargaining chip we have here?... I am unsure, I just wish we would of seen all this beforehand.

[seduraed]

if your solicitor or surveyor missed this you have a claim against their professional indemnity insurance. See ifthe neighbour will allow you to re route the path.

[islandgirl]

I do agree that the solicitor cannot ignore this. You write:
"We always made it clear that we would be looking to extend our property over the drive for a garage and car port. to which we were told we would need planning permission",
Did you tell the Solicitor this? Is it in writing anywhere?
You said
"When I rang the solicitor, they didn't seem to know or care what I was talking about. all they said was 'its not unusual for neighbours to have access rights, you will have to look into it further"
I am not surprised they reacted in this way. In your position (as I have said I am not a lawyer or a land law expert) I would write formally to the Solicitor stating the occasions on which I had made it clear that I wanted to build on that area (along with any written evidence) and would say that in my opinion they had a duty to point this issue out to me and failed to do so and that I would like them to tell me how they intend to remedy this situation. I will try to look at the plans etc later but would very much hope a land expert joins the conversation!

[Flymodrag]

Mostly everything was done verbally over the phone, and meetings were limited due to covid, we used an online portal where they would send us documents (we still have access) and we would have to complete actions to continue with buying the house, we were so motivated to just get in, and get on with what we wanted to do (Living in a caravan on parents drive for 2 years was starting to take its toll, we were in there before COVID existed) My other half read the documents they sent and signed off on them, I let him deal with everything usually, he may join in here at some point... but we must of missed it... it was definitely not explained to us.

[seduraed]

Go to the portal download everything and take hard copies.

[Flymodrag]

hmmm, ok... but how about the boundary, is that something we can work on?

[Scot22]

I am not a professional but it seems to me that the boundary is a possibility. However, it may depend on how long they have been using it.

The solicitor needs to be made fully aware of the concerns about professional standards. Consider, if not getting anywhere, making a formal complaint to SRA . Do some research to find procedure.
Fully understand how you have found yourself in this situation.

[Flymodrag]

Yes I will definitely go to my solicitors and discuss this. They should of let us know. - Looking at the text, does it at least let us ban people who don't live there from walking on it? - as in visitors to next door?

There is an ex of the tenant who threatened my other half - and he keeps using it every time he visits for anything.

[des8]

Not sufficient of the text available to say whether or not right of way limited solely to occupants of neighbouring house.
However not normally so limited