Driveway or Road?

[Winston_Woof]

Ok so here's an interesting follow on from  the current (no pun intended honest) EV thread.

This is my old car parked in its normal location (and yes I do have a garage but not for either of the cars)

The cul de sac is technically a private road that has not been adopted by the council.

To further confuse matters our Title Deeds show the area in the front as belonging to the property although when the developers built the newer houses (before we moved in)they retarmacced the entire area).

Would you class this are as "a driveway" or as "on road" ? 

(I've always classed it as driveway)

 

(yellow indicates approx car location)

[Baxlin]

Fence it off, your neighbours will soon tell you…

 

it is is serious point though, for car insurance purposes if nothing else - it could give the insurers wriggle room if the car is stolen, and you’ve said it’s parked on your driveway.  For this reason, I’d say road, so they are insuring the greater risk.

 

What did your conveyancing solicitor (or the vendor’s solicitor) say when you raised the point?  From what you say, the Deeds are on your side, but you need to clarify, as you can bet any would-be purchasers will ask when/if you come to sell the property.

[Ootohere]

It all becomes a bit involved. 

 

Is it the Kings highway / public road so adopted and maintained by the public purse.    ie Parking Restrictions could be put on the land, Double Yellow Lines, No parking etc.

Or is it private property / multiple owners, maintained by land owners but with access to the general public to walk or drive or park on?

[Winston_Woof]

1 hour ago, Baxlin said:

Fence it off, your neighbours will soon tell you…

 

it is is serious point though, for car insurance purposes if nothing else - it could give the insurers wriggle room if the car is stolen, and you’ve said it’s parked on your driveway.  For this reason, I’d say road, so they are insuring the greater risk.

 

What did your conveyancing solicitor (or the vendor’s solicitor) say when you raised the point?  From what you say, the Deeds are on your side, but you need to clarify, as you can bet any would-be purchasers will ask when/if you come to sell the property.

The whole situation  has turned out to be very complicated and that's a whole other issue (although it's caused more issues for the people in the new houses than us).

We have a leasehold  with a 900+ year £0.0  lease however originally (according to the 1837 deeds I have a copy of) that covered a much larger area (the extent of the Red lines) with the Freehold  of the red marked area also being with one person until approx 1911.

Fast forward to 1973 and via various transfer etc the leasehold on our property had been reduced to the Green area although the entire freehold was still owner by one company.(nb the one thats caused issue to the new houses is we still have access(on paper) to the yelow patch of land at the bottom of their gardens)

Skip now to around 2014 and a developer had bought that freehold and proceeded to build 4 new homes and assigned the freeholds as indicated to each of them.

They then dissolved the building company set up to create them meaning the remainder of the freehold (ie for ours & number 48) reverted to the Duchy of Lancaster.

Sum total is that we now have effectively 3 freeholders none of whom are owed any rent on an annual basis

[Winston_Woof]

4 minutes ago, Rooted said:

It all becomes a bit involved. 

 

Is it the Kings highway / public road so adopted and maintained by the public purse.    ie Parking Restrictions could be put on the land, Double Yellow Lines, No parking etc.

Or is it private property / multiple owners, maintained by land owners but with access to the general public to walk or drive or park on?

The latter. 

The road (according to the councils list of adopted roads) has not been adopted and indeed the binmen don't even come in (we all have to take the bins to the main road) even on foot.

[Winston_Woof]

3 minutes ago, Winston_Woof said:

Oh and further fun and games (especially for the new freeholders), according to their title deeds none have them have any form of right of access across the others freehold so in theory that far right property could restrict access to the close as everyone has to go across their property to get to the main road. At least we have the prior lease which was never amended when the developers messed everything  up around 2014.

[Ootohere]

The situation at the Housing Association property that my mum stayed at was that houses has a parking place and there were a few places for visitors and it was un-adopted and never could be as it was pavers that were on the ground.

Residents started calling the police when cars got parked or left long times in the vicinity.

The officers should have told them it was none of their business who parked there.   Also that they were not going to deal with cars with no VED or Insurance.

(The Council do not even clear abandoned cars from public roads unless The Royals are visiting the town, or a car is abandoned outside a councillors house.)

Some residents wanted No Parking and Yellow lines and i told them that was down to the housing association not the council.

It was a farce, the non clearing of Snow, no Gritting etc and then gritting but no drain clearing and blocked drains.

Since it was so bad one winter I had a mate that did private snow clearing and gritting pull in and do the area, *By mistake.*,  they complained that it was not done correctly. 

[Winston_Woof]

Just for further reference the area covered by the lease overlaid on the security cams (and yes the neighbours are fully aware of these and are happy with them being there as have benefited them as well, we're a nice friendly bunch  )

Yes we could go and build a fence but no-one is going to benefit from that and would simply be a bloody minded thing to do

[Ootohere]

Looks like all you would ever need is to have 2 or 3 hi-viz fold flat bollards bolted down on the ground which is yours to secure in your vehicle or exclude others. 

 

eg

 

Edited 20 February by Rooted

[Baxlin]

38 minutes ago, Winston_Woof said:

Yes we could go and build a fence but no-one is going to benefit from that and would simply be a bloody minded thing to do

Apologies if you took me seriously, it was meant to be tongue in cheek - from your first post it looks like there wouldn’t be room to fence it anyway.

 

The rest of my post was not tongue in cheek, however, particularly about the insurance.

 

Best of luck sorting it all out.

 

Malcolm

[Winston_Woof]

30 minutes ago, Baxlin said:

Apologies if you took me seriously, it was meant to be tongue in cheek - from your first post it looks like there wouldn’t be room to fence it anyway.

 

The rest of my post was not tongue in cheek, however, particularly about the insurance.

 

Best of luck sorting it all out.

 

Malcolm

NPs, they were all thoughts that have gone trhough my head at one point or another


The issues all stem back to 2009 when the plans were (IMHO) wrongly approved (nb we only moved here in 2018 after everything was done) as they never took existing leasehold boundaries (green) into account.

Just to compound the matter they never even built as per the approved plans as the 3 new houses to the left aren't staggered and they never did that area with bushes/circles on in

*sigh*

Oh and the numbering is all wrong 1 is actually 46 (on the main road) , 2 is now 1, 3 is now 2 and 4 is now 3 as ours was always 4

[Winston_Woof]

46 minutes ago, Rooted said:

Looks like all you would ever need is to have 2 or 3 hi-viz fold flat bollards bolted down on the ground which is yours to secure in your vehicle or exclude others. 

 

eg

 

Even that's overkill

We have no issues with random vehicles using the close as there are no shops, schools, other public places immediately near by.

Yes we get the odd vehicle come in and turn around (normally because they think its a cut through , got me thinking now, I dont think its tagged as a dead end from the main road, will have to check a little later lol) but other than residents & their visitors there are no issues, all very neighbourly

[PetrolDave]

@Winston_Woof your superimposed photo shows part of the car outside of the green area, so I would play safe and say parked on the road.

[Winston_Woof]

1 minute ago, PetrolDave said:

@Winston_Woof your superimposed photo shows part of the car outside of the green area, so I would play safe and say parked on the road.

Its an approximate indication ;o)

[PetrolDave]

25 minutes ago, Winston_Woof said:

Its an approximate indication ;o)

As are all boundaries based on such maps, the thickness of the boundary line itself is equivalent to several feet (metres).

 

A former colleague who lived in rural Norfolk had a dispute with the local council who claimed that his front wall (which had been there since the house was built in the 1850's) was too close to the road (a very quiet rural back road to nowhere) and it ended up with them taking legal action and forcing him to pay for them to demolish the wall. We took him to the council buildings (in an Audi stretched limousine we were working on at the time) in Norwich to pay, with the cheque attached to a brick from the now demolished wall!

[Winston_Woof]

anyways dropped an email over to the insurance company to clarify with them

[Winston_Woof]

6 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

As are all boundaries based on such maps, the thickness of the boundary line itself is equivalent to several feet (metres).

 

A former colleague who lived in rural Norfolk had a dispute with the local council who claimed that his front wall (which had been there since the house was built in the 1850's) was too close to the road (a very quiet rural back road to nowhere) and it ended up with them taking legal action and forcing him to pay for them to demolish the wall. We took him to the council buildings (in an Audi stretched limousine we were working on at the time) in Norwich to pay, with the cheque attached to a brick from the now demolished wall!

also angle & perspective alter the perception ;o)

Looked at this way both vehicles are well within the boundary

[skomaz]

For insurance purposes that's a road.  On a drive you wouldn't be in a position whereby your car could be struck by passing traffic.  That picture clearly shows you can be and are within the carriageway.

 

As an aside why do you park end on rather than parallel?

Edited 20 February by skomaz

[Ootohere]

This is 'Off street parking'  and is why or how the UK Government make statements like 70% of homes have 'Off street parking.    This is a figure the spout to make it look / read like for the majority of vehicle owners there can be EV charging at home'. 

Total guff as usual from Statistics, Office for national statistics etc.  This government has no idea how many properties are subdivided, or illegally converted.

They do not even know how many people live in Local Authority building like multi storeys. 

Edited 20 February by Rooted

[skomaz]

As to your deed boundary the situation whereby you 'own' part of the road is not unusual in older properties as the ownership usually includes the half width of the highway in front, even if adopted, but owners can't do anything with or to it because of the adoption by the LHA.

 

My bet is that there will be a restrictive covenant on it somewhere in the deed's.

[skomaz]

1 minute ago, Rooted said:

This is 'Off street parking'  and is why or how the UK Government make statements like 70% of homes have 'Off street parking.    This is a figure the spout to make it look like the majority there can be EV charging at home'. 

Total guff as usual from Statistics, Office for national statistics etc.  This government has no idea how many properties are subdivided, or illegally converted.

They do not even know how many people live in Local Authority building like multi storeys. 

 

But that's irrelevant here as we're talking insurance not govt statistics.

[PetrolDave]

Just now, skomaz said:

As to your deed boundary the situation whereby you 'own' part of the road is not unusual in older properties as the ownership usually includes the half width of the highway in front, even if adopted, but owners can't do anything with or to it because of the adoption by the LHA.

Not just older properties, the deeds for my 2022 build property show my boundary in the middle of the (soon to be adopted) road in front.

[PetrolDave]

12 minutes ago, Winston_Woof said:

also angle & perspective alter the perception ;o)

Looked at this way both vehicles are well within the boundary

What's the "white" line of border stones shown near your house? That to me suggests an intended separator between private space and public space?

[skomaz]

1 minute ago, PetrolDave said:

Not just older properties, the deeds for my 2022 build property show my boundary in the middle of the (soon to be adopted) road in front.

 

That's strange for a newer build.  Normally on new builds the adopted highway area is transferred to the LHA under a Section 38 Agreement 

[skomaz]

1 minute ago, PetrolDave said:

What's the "white" line of border stones shown near your house? That to me suggests an intended separator between private space and public space?

 

That's the kerbline and edge of carriageway, or at least it's intended to be...