We've recently bought a house and when we were in the process of buying it, the advert said there was a communal garden. We double checked this as we did not want a communal garden. The deeds state that there is a communal driveway to the rear and there are lots of strictures about how it is used etc. The deeds also list all the covenants from when there was a house on the the land previously (now a row of terraces). The deeds show the garden at the front as clearly separated by boundaries and lost who is responsible for which one. The deeds also state that owners of other properties within the terrace can only access other neighbours gardens to access things like utility repairs or guttering repairs, that kind of thing.
We have applied to build an extension into the garden and the neighbours are stating that we cannot because the garden is communal. They've sent us a link to the council planning site showing the original architects drawings on which the word communal is written on the garden for all 3 properties. However, the plan on the deeds does not show this and nothing is written to that effect on the deeds. Moreover, the original architects drawings show a different layout of the houses to what they turned out as, for example the side windows are different and it states that foul water drains to the mains when in fact there are soak aways.
Can anyone advise as to which takes precedence, original architect's planning submissions or title deeds? Our solicitor was very confident that our garden is our garden and is not communal and has written as such to us to reassure us, but now the neighbour has sent through the link to the original drawings. The neighbours are saying if only we'd just asked them, then we wouldn't have wasted all this money on an extension design.
If the gardens were communal we wouldn't have bought the house. Also, the gardens are all treated as separate and have established thick hedging. I am a recent name changer (cubes of poo, rivers of sweet corn, fruit shoots and greggs).
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Random one on original plans vs deeds any advice/knowledge welcome.
4 replies
KevinMcCallister · 21/11/2016 19:55
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