Lane way access to side entrance

J

JuiceLoose

Registered User
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4
Hi

My wife and i looking at buying a house that has a side entrance located on a lane way that isnt showing as owned by anyone on the land direct site.
The current owners of the house have had their solicitor create a document declaring that for 25 years both they and the previous owners had no issues using the lane way even though it is not listed as a right of way or even listed as being privately owned.
I have contacted the local council roads department as the lane connects to a council road in front of the house we are looking at but that was only today so havent had a response yet.
At the other end of the lane way there is a gate to another house but they dont own the lane way and also have been using it unrestricted

My solicitor seems to be unhappy that no one seems to know who owns the lane way but my question is that is it not their job to find out and are the right to be concerned

thanks
Colin
 
JuiceLoose said:
Hi

My wife and i looking at buying a house that has a side entrance located on a lane way that isnt showing as owned by anyone on the land direct site.
The current owners of the house have had their solicitor create a document declaring that for 25 years both they and the previous owners had no issues using the lane way even though it is not listed as a right of way or even listed as being privately owned.
I have contacted the local council roads department as the lane connects to a council road in front of the house we are looking at but that was only today so havent had a response yet.
At the other end of the lane way there is a gate to another house but they dont own the lane way and also have been using it unrestricted

My solicitor seems to be unhappy that no one seems to know who owns the lane way but my question is that is it not their job to find out and are the right to be concerned

thanks
Colin
Click to expand...

Offhand, I think that your solicitor is being cautious and quite rightly so.

IMHO creation of the document you describe might be regarded as an artifice. Such a document may have no legal authority at all in terms of giving you the desired right of way or right of passage over the lane. I would see that document as no more use than a formal agreement that I liked my neighbour for the last 25 years:). I would place no reliance on it as it sounds nugatory.

The vendor may have acquired an effective right of way over time. However, I see nothing formally established in relation to rights over the lane. I would want to be fully satisfied that the vendor actually has legal right of way. If the vendor has no right of way how can they convey such a right to you in turn ? Put another way, the vendor cannot convey to you that which they do not have with any degree of reliable certainty i.e. the right of way.

Even if there was a formal agreement with the neighbouring property I would also want to be sure that the neighbouring property also has the title or other legal right that enables them to agree to a right of way. If the neighbouring property does not possess that authority how can they enter a binding agreement about right of way.

Sorry to be pedantic about this but we had a potentially messy problem like this and so I tend to be really cautious about these scenarios. We have a drive at the side of our house. It is shared with the neighbour on the other side of it i.e. it is down the middle between our houses. There was a potential dispute in relation to something that our neighbour threatened to do with the drive.

When the properties were first conveyed in the 1950s each party entered an irrevocable agreement whereby each of us granted the other a right of passage over the entire width of the drive for pedestrian and vehicular purposes (and even the right to ride a horse over it). The agreement binds successors in title to the respective properties. This meant that we could stop an attempted land grab.

In summary, I would not purchase without solid certainty in relation to the issues above. You do not want to purchase and find that you don't have what you thought that you were buying if a problem arises.
 
Our solicitor wants to find who owns the lane way as the local council have come back and said that they have no claim on it.

The house we are looking at and the house at the end of the lane way back onto a centuries old convent so they may own the lane but i am hoping that our solicitor will find that out in due course.

is there anywhere we could look ourselves to try and find out the owners of the lane way?
 
JuiceLoose said:
Our solicitor wants to find who owns the lane way as the local council have come back and said that they have no claim on it.

The house we are looking at and the house at the end of the lane way back onto a centuries old convent so they may own the lane but i am hoping that our solicitor will find that out in due course.

is there anywhere we could look ourselves to try and find out the owners of the lane way?
Click to expand...

That, I genuinely don't know.

Interestingly enough the land on which our house stands was demised from a major religious institution too. However, we have a huge bundle of deeds that go right back to the various transactions starting from the conveyance of the land to the developer and so on. The documents in that bundle read like War and Peace but do track and witness all the relevant transactions so we know that everything is sound in terms of titles and rights. I wonder if the vendor's title deeds have the relevant history that would give you the same certainty. Your solicitor should be able to get that from the vendor's solicitors.

Remember that your solicitor will probably advise you not to complete the purchase until they are satisfied that you can get a clean conveyance of what you believe that you are buying.

As far as checking records are concerned the big problem is that land registration in Ireland has been historically haphazard. Records could be in the Land Registry, the Registry of Deeds or even nowhere if dealing with old titles ! The system is being brought up to date but legacy issues remain for old properties especially if there have been no transactions on them for many years.
 
i have looked at OSI records that show maps back to the 1830's with roughly the same boundaries listed for the houses on the lane and the convent.

So should our solicitor have a copy of the complete deeds and possibly know who owns or have an idea of who may own the lane way?

sorry for the questions but we are first time buyers but we arent hearing anything from the solicitors since they flagged the lane issue
 
Basically your solicitor should know how far back they need to go and what they need to see.

The end goal for your solicitor is to ensure that the conveyance to you gives you a proper and defensible title. That can be complicated and time consuming where your solicitor needs to investigate any irregularity or oddity that impinges on title.
 
ok will wait to see what they come back with and hope its all positive

thanks for all the comments
 
I bought a property some years ago with a similar issue.

My first question is how critical is this side entrance. If it is then the only way in or out of the property, then obviously it is critical, you should probably walk away. On the other hand if it is just nice to have an additional side entrance, not so much. In the worst case say, someone turns up with a good claim to the lane way and you cannot use the side entrance, do you still want to buy the house.

If you would buy the house anyway, then go ahead, maybe with some discount on the price.

If you can then secure a claim on the lane way with your neighbour, well thats a bonus.

If you do buy i suggest putting a gate on the lane way and closing it at least occasionally.
 
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