unmade road

[Guest]

We have lived on this road for 18 years. Someone has purchased the road and now demands we pay £300 a year to park on it. The road has been maintained as per our deeds for over 100 years by everyone fronting onto it. It only existed for three pairs of cottages and just led to a wood. Can we fight this charge and on what legal grounds should we follow?

[des8]

So what is the exact wording in your deeds concerning this road and your right to use it.?
Exact wording please, not a paraphrase!

[dslippy]

Private roads vary considerably in how they are set up. You do not say enough to allow others to comment properly.

[Guest]

I'm sorry that it's been a while. I have lived here for 18 years, it is an unmade road that has served the cottages down it for over a century.
The road leads nowhere and the residents have had uninterrupted use of it since the houses were built (1904)
Forgive me but I will just paste the bit of the deeds that is relevant;

TOGETHER with the right for the Purchasers and their successors in title the owners or occupiers for the time being of the property hereby conveyed and their tenants servants and licensees in common with Barclays Bank Limited and its successors in title and all persons authorised by it or them at all times and for all purposes to go pass and repass over and along the road known as Edward Road to and from the main road and the property hereby conveyed on payment of a fair proportion of the cost of keeping such road in repair AND TOGETHER ALSO with and subject to all such other rights of drainage water and other easements as are now used and enjoyed by under or over the property hereby conveyed or the adjoining properties on either side or which but for unity of ownership would have been so used and enjoyed Subject to and with the benefit of a certain Indenture dated the Fifteenth day of March One thousand eight hundred and Ninety two and made between Helen Lowe of the one part and The Great Eastern Railway Company of the other part and the covenants by the Company therein contained whereby or by an Agreement dated the Eigth day of July One thousand eight hundred and Eighty four therein referred to and thereby confirmed the said Helen Lowe granted the Company the right to lay a water pipe under a portion of the land hereby conveyed and other land and to enter upon the same for the purpose of repairing or renewing the said pipe and the Company agreed to make good all damage occasioned by such repair or renewal so far as the same affect the property hereby conveyed and are still subsisting and capable of taking effect. NOTE: No copies of the Deed dated 15 March 1892 or the Agreement dated 8 July 1884 referred to above were supplied on First Registration.

I hope that this helps.

As mentioned the new owner is now starting to charge us for parking outside our homes which in no way blocks access, it never has and for over a century we have kept the road in good repair with no assistance from whoever owned the road over that time. It was in the deeds and in our own interest to look after it. I don't know what I can help you with but humbly ask for your help and guidance. No one has paid anything yet but this will mount up and principal is only good so long as you can afford it. Three of us are retired and in our case it would mean loosing the Car.

[atticus]

They may be relying on the fact that what you have is a right to "go pass and repass" over and along the road. That does not include a right to park.

Others may know more about parking easements and how they are acquired. All I know is that they are notoriously difficult.

[des8]

....but I wonder if "and other easements as are now used and enjoyed by under or over the property" included the parking of carts and could be stretched to include the parking of other vehicles.

[dslippy]

I doubt very much that people used to park carts on a road.

Parking easements are notoriously difficult to establish and particularly where people park mostly outside their own houses but otherwise as necessary. That such parking does not intefere with cars going back and forth along the road is unfortunately unlikely to be of any significance.

What evidence has been produced of this chap's ownership of the roadway?

[Guest]

What evidence has been produced of this chap's ownership of the roadway?

It is not yet on the land registry site. Apparently this is normal as he only purchased it in March/ April