Does anyone live on a private road?

[Zebaa]

If so, please share your experiences. What happens if neighbours cause issues regarding off street parking, lighting etc. Can you rely on the council to deal with neighbour issues? What if some don’t want to pay for road refurbs and there isn’t a management company in place? Considering moving to one but have some concerns so any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

The council won't sort anything - it is all down to the owners. On our road there was one person who was very reluctant to do anything at all until the condition got so bad it damaged his car (shame).

However, we can't get agreement to share the costs of digging up the road to instal wifi cabling. There are only 5 houses though so it's manageable.

I have a house on a private road.... full of pot holes, no one wants to repair the road. My neighbours tried to set up a group to do this no joy

I'm not that bothered as I have no parking there.

Other friends have a private road and they sort it out and make sure it's kept well kempt

Talk to the neighbours and see if there's a agreement in place

My parents live on a private road. It’s a very small cup de sac with four houses. When the road was laid, the top layers weren’t put on and so the rain never drained away into the gutters (gutters were fitted higher, thinking that the top layers of tarmac would be going on the road) and the dirt used to carry into the houses.

Three out of the four houses’ owners wanted to pool together to pay for the top tarmac layers to be added, one wouldn’t pay. That was the owner of the middle house, so either the tarmacing wouldn’t happen, or the three houses would have to share the cost.

The three houses shared the cost in the end. The middle house owner obviously wasn’t compelled to contribute, but still took the benefit of the tarmacing.

So there may be issues like that.

Thanks. If there are any parking disputes, who would deal with those? Doesn’t sound like the council would.

A private road is just that, nothing to do with anyone other than the owners or worse, no owners.

There is an entire unadopted estate near where I live. It's like something out of a warzone.

No a private road is nothing to do with council. If there was a parking issue you’d resolve amongst selves or not as case may be. Obviously if it escalated to criminal damage or a physical fight over parking police could be called.

Yes.

We have a co-op fund for road repairs and things like planters. There's never been any parking disputes since I've been here, as everyone sticks to parking 1 car on the street and any others on the side street at the bottom, unless they arrange differently with someone (our neighbour across the street doesn't drive now so he's allocated the space outside his house to us).

We have a streetlight at either end of the street as the side roads aren't private, but there's nothing on our street itself. It's very short though so it's sufficient. Otherwise we'd pay more into our collective fund.

Hey, I live on a private road of just 5 houses. We all do our bit. Two neighbours are in the trade, but the one that’s just about to retire will go out and keep the bushes tidy.
We had a problem with people from the next road parking on a gravelled section, I mentioned we needed our own Stone Henge on it, he acquired some rather large stones and we haven’t had that problem since.
I have cctv on my house as it has one section covered, the neighbours in the other corner have that section covered. We’re sad, we swap notes if there’s anything untoward.
We all get in great tbh, but that does depend if you’re all singing off the same hymn sheet.

I give houses with private roads a very wide berth unless the road is already well maintained, which would suggest there’s already a working system in place. Although almost everyone that I know who has lived on one has had some issues, irrespective of having a management company.

In our last house, the neighbour who had been there the longest, acted like he had ultimate say in maintenance matters. Upgraded works to the road, adding very lovely, expensive curbed stones which added a further 50k to an already big job. He then had the audacity to bill each neighbour for their part despite not consulting anyone. We all paid up rather than get into a dispute.

Another friend has a right of access over a shared driveway. Owner refuses to resurface it adequately. Think dirt track which is a muddy mess in winter and a dust bath in the summer. Another two have rubble and potholes the size of craters.

Unadopted road here - 3 properties. Last year one decided he wanted the lane tarmacing. He got a quote, agreed to pay lion's share and we agreed to a smaller amount - 3rd neighbour refused saying they didn't see the need. It didn't happen. With regards to parking it's fine whilst everyone is on good terms. Get a bad neighbour though and it's hell as there's very little you can do to stop them - council won't want to know.

I live on a private road. We have a management company (that we pay an annual fee to) and a residents management group that manage separate areas - green space / lighting / state of the roads etc).

We also have a residents FB group, where any concerns / problems can be highlighted / discussed.

The council will not get involved in any issues whatsoever.

Ours is managed by the developer, no different to the council in our experience

I live on a private road with about 10 properties (maybe 1.5 km in total length) - each of these are small farm properties of approx 10 acres. The shared road/driveway is in a shocking condition but with recent land transactions some of the residents are not interested in contributing to maintenance costs. One previous owner used to grade & re-shingle the driveway once a year that we all paid into an account for.

We have held a couple of resident meetings to discuss concerns like speed limits (its a gravel/shingle road, not sealed) & I understand that in the titles (??) or liens of the properties that if any of us subdivide our land then the driveway must be tarmaced (sp) & kerbs installed.
I expect the cost for that will be astronomical & already there are problems with $$ contributions from some owners.

So we've decided that this is our for-now property as we dont really want to spend thousands & thousands for the proportionate share of the driveway upgrade that we may only use for the next 5 or so years.

Have any of you had any neighbour disputes whilst living on a private road? If so, how were they dealt with? Via a lawyer? I only ask because we are moving due to neighbour issues presently and want to understand what would happen if were are surrounded by bullies again, but on a private road.

My rule of thumb is never ever fall out with your neighbours unless you are prepared to move.
I ve just moved from a rural location with a un-adopted private road, just 3 properties but it was always us and another neighbour trimming the hedges, fixing potholes, despite the 3rd neighbour running a internet business from her home (so loads of vans) point blank refused to do any work/pay.

We never fell out but i was there for many years and i wont be keeping in touch with them.

anyway, you'd be on your own, so make sure you have legal insurance on your household cover.

I’m on a private road with management company dealing with road etc. All ok, annual fee is fine

There is a small "unadopted" road which runs behind my house and that of 4 others (so 5 houses in all). Officially this is the name of the rd where my house is situated. Its an odd back to front house and there is no vehicle access to the unadopted road. So all traffic gets directed around to the road on other side of the house. Fortunately the "other" rd is adopted by the council.

Each householder is responsible for the piece of unadopted road which is on their property. As there is no vehicular traffic the surface does not need renewing - yet. However there is a business park behind and each household is responsible for dealing with any encroaching vegetation. I just get my gardner to trim the trees every few months and take the clippings to the tip.

Ours is an unadopted road (I’m not actually sure if this is different legally to a private road?).
Depends what you mean by disputes? We had our road resurfaced and all but one house paid for it (they do benefit but you can’t force them and we accepted their choice). One neighbour’s adult son became a bully at that point and is very protective of his parking (think arguments with anyone parking in ‘his’ area), he’s a nasty piece of work but avoidable so that’s what we all do now.
The police have been happy to see off recent drug dealers and I’d be very surprised if the council wouldn’t deal with any nuisance but maybe I’m being naive there. All utility companies have worked on the road as and when they’ve needed to fix things and broadband cables were set up for free. The council did provide a new road sign for us too, as we had problems with people driving fast into what is effectively a full de sac, thinking it runs through onto another road. They gave us a sign with a dead end symbol on it to help.

I would be wary of moving to a road with lots of rented out properties as the landlords will not be willing to pay for any road repairs or anything.

Don't worry. Antisocial behaviour, excessive noise, anything like that, will still be covered by the same laws as the rest of England and Wales!