Owning the access road to your house

[numnum]

I've been on a lot about me and my partner buying his grandads house

One of my big issues when doing the sale was the fact we dont own any of the drive that goes down to the main entrance to our house.

I've been telling my boyfriend that its something we would need to sort out.

The house next door is his mums and i'm trying to explain to him that if she downsizes or has to go into a care home and sell the house we don't own the drive way. we own the small part of the drive at the back of the house for 1 car but not the road down to it.

What would happen if someone bought her house and then didn't want us to use that part of the drive? it could get messy. i said it shouldve been sorted out during the sale of his grandparents house. but i think he thinks everyhthing is okay because his mum lives next door. but all my friends/family are also saying that is something that should be sorted whether its his mum next door or not

[dotty.]

It should be in your deeds that there is vehicular access over the drive to your property and not just for your own use/vehicle, but for emergency services and other utilities. check the deeds

[numnum]

the road is like his mums parking along with the parking for our house. its a short drive that runs alongside our livingroom wall.

his mums house on the left, drive in the middle then our house on the right then our bit of road. if you park a car on it, the back end would stick out onto the main bit of the drive

going to read through the deeds

[buildersmate]

The property that you propose to buy / transfer MUST have a legal right to pass/repass up the access road from the public highway. If you buy using a conveyancer he/she will ensure that you don't buy without it - you will end up with something that is unsaleable later if you don't deal with this properly.
The answer to your question about what could happen if his Mum's house got sold is that the next owner could demand an unlimited amount of money to later grant you a right of way over his land.
Sort it now.

[numnum]

thanks buildersmate. thats what i'm trying to explain to my boyfriend but not doing a very good job of it. i know its not a nice thing to think that something might happen to his mum but you've got to think like that in this case and we cant always thing it'll be okay because she lives next door

the house sale has gone through and i'm still moaning about it

[numnum]

another thing is his mum wants to do the drive up as its a muddy road, we'd also like that but i wouldn't like to pay anything until we owned the side that runs down the side of our house.

we'd have to pay just because of the layout of the road. its not somewhere that she could do her bit and leave our access bit. the whole area would need to be done at the same time

[twix123]

Where I live those houses with shared driveways own the half adjacent to their homes but have right of way over the other half of the drive and their neighbours own their half with a right of way over the other half. This should all be set out in the deeds.

[numnum]

i'm trying to read through the title deeds but its all that big words and nothing seems to stand out about mentioning the access road

[bednobs]

did you do it via solicitor?

[Nosha123]

a conveyance solicitor would have picked up on the access issues.. and yes you do need to ensure its all done properly and is watertight.

I'm sure the Mother wont ever create an issue - but dont always assume!

My MIL DID cause us an issue when we re selling our house (her name on deeds) and luckily we had all the paperwork done properly so we were protected.

[numnum]

i called our solicitor today. i left a message with his secretary so we'll hopefully here back today or monday if its something we should be worried about

i totally agree with you, i don't think his mum will create an issue about it but you never know.. his brother was never meant to sell the house and he's done that so you really cant trust your own family when it comes to these things. especially when we have no control over it