WayLeave to access gable bdy wall for painting or maintenance of gutters etc?

I apologise in advance if this is in the wrong forum.

Some years ago, we put a refundable deposit on a house that we were very anxious to buy.

When we had put the deposit down, we then discovered that one of the house walls was on the boundary. This is a house in an estate of white houses. In order to access this wall for painting or maintenance of gutters , we would have had to ask permission of the neighbour each time.

We, through our solicitor, asked for a way leave (I think that was the term), and the neighbour refused; understandably, I suppose.

We were, in my opinion, badly advised, and had incurred some costs in investigating this, rather than forcing the issue on the vendor.
However, when the neighbour refused, we decided not to proceed.

It was a lovely house and eventually after several months, it was sold.

I just wonder ,were we foolish to be so pedantic? Are there any stories out there?

Re: Way Leave , were we right or wrong?

If your solicitor told you not to go ahead with the purchase, then you were badly advised.

However, if your solicitor told you that you would not be able (as of right) to get in to paint the house wall (assuming that this was reflected in the title and he interpreted it correctly ) but left entirely to you the decision as to whether to proceed, then you were properly advised.

As to whether it should instead have been made the vendor's problem: in the current market certainly this would be an option, as buyers are in a position to dictate terms; in the market of a few years ago, who knows? Probably not not.

I don't think you were 'foolish to be so pedantic'. Something like this would not bother me. But I can see how it would bother some people. It is certainly not something which would be objectively regarded as an automatic deal breaker. So it really depends entirely how you felt about it.

Don't spend time on regrets. If you now feel you should not have insisted on this at the time, take it as a lesson learnt and regard the whole thing as a (small) piece of personal growth.

I used to get annoyed because nobody in my house (except me) ever seemed to put the milk back in the fridge. Sometimes when I wanted cold milk on top of rice crispies in the evening, I would have to open a second container of milk, because the first one was at room temperature. This meant there were two open milks in the fridge, another pet peeve of mine. I am sure you can imagine how annoying this would be. So I was getting mildly irritated maybe five times a day.

One day, I just decided that from now on, I would never ever bother putting milk back in the fridge, and I would no longer look to see how many were open. So I don't. Nobody died. We haven't started throwing out gallons of milk. That's about 1,700 episodes of petty irritation per annum (allowing for being away from home from time to time) which I now don't have. Was it pedantic of me to always grab the milk off the table if it was there more than five minutes? Who cares.

Re: Way Leave , were we right or wrong?

You could have spoken to the neighbour. This occurs frequestnly, especially in towns - i.e gable wall built right on boundary.

Access is occasionally required to e.g clean eve-runs, ( and repainting ). Most nighbours would be happy to see a gable kept painted and looking well.

Further many neghbours of a house which is on the market are curious, or worried, about who will buy it. We all want to have good neighbours. The neighbours may be so relieved that someone reasonable ( as are all posters on this board ) proposes buying the house that they will tell you to paint away.