Dear period properteers,
I'm getting close to the endgame on my purchase of the grade II cottage in Oxon, and a routine update with solicitor has left me in serious doubt. The property has a lock-up shop in the ground floor, with its own entrance. The cottage is accessed across land to the side (owned by the Parish Council), and through a gate into its back garden.
Solicitor has found out that I wouldn't have a right of way across the parish council land. There's an agreement dating back to the '40s that the owner can use the path for two shillings and sixpence a year. This hasn't been paid for at least 40 years, and I'd be surprised if the PC even remembers about it.
The problem is that in the face of this agreement (even though it's been neglected) the 40-year-plus use of the path has not established a RoW. Hence the PC could in theory prevent me from using it in the future. Solicitor's answer is get the vendor to indemnify me against this eventuality for the purchase price of the house.
That would be OK in the case that the PC decide to raise funds by making me buy an easement (i.e. the right to access in perpetuity), since the cost of this is apparently worked out as a third of the difference between the price of the property with said easement and without (i.e. a third of the purchase price, since the value without access is negligible). As long as the policy coughed up that would be OK.
But what if the PC in years to come decides to build across the gap between the cottage and the building next door (a community centre and also PC property)? Or sell the site for building? Then I have no access and I'm left just with the 2007 purchase price and nothing more. Is this too much of a risk to take? Should it impact on the purchase price? And would you be mad to make yourself hostage to an insurance company in this way at all? It's after all ultimately up to them, not me, whether they pay out or not.
I know there will be lots ofsituations where such policies are a good solution. What's causing me serious misgivings is that the entire gap which the access pathway runs through could well make a nice building plot to complete the terrace along the street. Accsss through the shop at the front is unfeasible.
I'm getting close to the endgame on my purchase of the grade II cottage in Oxon, and a routine update with solicitor has left me in serious doubt. The property has a lock-up shop in the ground floor, with its own entrance. The cottage is accessed across land to the side (owned by the Parish Council), and through a gate into its back garden.
Solicitor has found out that I wouldn't have a right of way across the parish council land. There's an agreement dating back to the '40s that the owner can use the path for two shillings and sixpence a year. This hasn't been paid for at least 40 years, and I'd be surprised if the PC even remembers about it.
The problem is that in the face of this agreement (even though it's been neglected) the 40-year-plus use of the path has not established a RoW. Hence the PC could in theory prevent me from using it in the future. Solicitor's answer is get the vendor to indemnify me against this eventuality for the purchase price of the house.
That would be OK in the case that the PC decide to raise funds by making me buy an easement (i.e. the right to access in perpetuity), since the cost of this is apparently worked out as a third of the difference between the price of the property with said easement and without (i.e. a third of the purchase price, since the value without access is negligible). As long as the policy coughed up that would be OK.
But what if the PC in years to come decides to build across the gap between the cottage and the building next door (a community centre and also PC property)? Or sell the site for building? Then I have no access and I'm left just with the 2007 purchase price and nothing more. Is this too much of a risk to take? Should it impact on the purchase price? And would you be mad to make yourself hostage to an insurance company in this way at all? It's after all ultimately up to them, not me, whether they pay out or not.
I know there will be lots ofsituations where such policies are a good solution. What's causing me serious misgivings is that the entire gap which the access pathway runs through could well make a nice building plot to complete the terrace along the street. Accsss through the shop at the front is unfeasible.