To buy a house with no rear/side garden access

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Insight welcome please Mumsnetters - a couple of the properties we’ve looked at have no side or rear access to the back garden. Would this be a deal breaker for you?

House 1 - semi detached, has a garage which runs most the length of the house up to a small utility so in theory stuff could go through there but not ideal if packed with stuff and only a small door at the back which may be an issue if tradespeople are bringing stuff through (garden would need some work).

House 2 - detached, has been extended to the side and no access. Garage does not run the length of the house. Only option would be going through the house itself.

Both houses have kitchens at the back so would ideally want to keep bins/recycling in the garden

I am edging to these both being a ‘no’ but DH says he could look beyond it.

Our neighbours are extending and their house will be like this … I don’t get it. And I wouldn’t like it, but compromises have to be made so it depends on the rest.

It's not ideal, I think it would devalue a house. I would be willing to compromise if it meant getting more house than was otherwise affordable, or a better area.

Our house got extended like your first example (but with no utility). There's so much I'd like done to the garden but there's always stuff in the garage, or the access door is too narrow to get things through. I wanted a huge bushy yew tree removed at the beginning of the year but no room to get branches through, or to get a chipper machine into the garden. If I ever move again I'll definitely make sure there's better access to the rear as it's a pain in the backside.

If you cut your grass do you have to bring the cuttings through the house?

Are the bins out front? Do you have to bring your kitchen waste through the house?

Used to live in a mid terrace with a 30ft garden. Technically there was a footpath at the back that you could take bins up and down but everyone on the row kept them at the front as it was PITA to drag the bin down the garden, along the path and back up to the front. We also had to bring all garden rubbish through the house as the path was too narrow to get a wheelbarrow down. Never again!

Our old house you could only access the garden through the garage or the house. It was fine - bins were wheeled through the garage to be put out. We had work done on the garden, and that was a bit of a challenge as it had to be dug by hand, but it was done fine. We lived there for nearly 20 years.

Our house is like this, you can only access the back garden through the garage. It didn't even strike us as an issue when we viewed and it's never been a problem. We keep the bins out the front.
I think it's a plus for security that the back of the house can't be easily accessed.

We currently live in a mid-terrace and honestly don’t miss a side access. We have smaller bin bags for shuttling to the bin-box in the front garden (recycling and normal kitchen). We have our own composter in the garden. The other garden waste isn’t an issue - that just goes out into ikea bags and to the tip or the council collection bin. Any workmen etc have always been v considerate - they come prepared with ground sheets themselves if needed.

I will say we only have carpets on the stairs and some upstairs room, so sweeping and mopping has never been a problem.

I’m in the end house of a row of 4. We all have back gardens but only my house has a (very narrow) access path along the side of the house to the back garden. I have to let the neighbours use this path when they need to take stuff to or from their back gardens, but this rarely occurs - I can only recall a few times in 20 years that they’ve asked. It’s generally been if they’ve had building work going on and need to get ladders round the back. How often do you think you’ll need to get things through to the back?

Edited to add: if the house was otherwise good, it wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me, especially the house where you can go through the garage and utility.

It would be a deal breaker for me

My previous house had this and I did get used to it. I made a wooden bin shed for my wheelie bins in the front garden, composted my back garden waste (handy), and never really needed trades at the back anyway. A friend of ours had this and had to have his hot tub installed with an industrial crane, from the front street, which was somewhat more challenging.

You need to consider all of the features of the houses and work out whether and what you’d be prepared to compromise for garden access.

I wouldn't. What if you needed building work done at the back of the house?

I used to live in a terrace of 4 old cottages which had right of way from left to right (as you looked out the back door) across all the gardens to a private road, and every one had a gate of some sort on both sides of their garden to facilitate this - for bins/bikes/mowers ect.

However! Because no one wanted their neighbours traipsing across their patios with their shite it was just loosely agreed that no one ever did it unless it was a dire emergency and then it was done with prior arrangement with all involved. And a bit of eyebrow raising.
It was a pain in the arse bringing everything through the house as you can imagine - but you do get used to it ...

We did it for 8 years and we SO enjoyed our next house with normal garden access up the side. It felt like luxury 😀

Oh we did the industrial crane thing too! When we did a loft conversion ... that was fun 🧐

I wouldnt buy a house without a side or back access. It gives you an option to bring oversize items into the house via a different route. I have always had some sort of back access and use it rather than the front door (I live semi-rural) where people tend to use the backdoor as the main entrance.

Our current house has no access to the back garden apart from walking through the house, including through the living room. I dislike this intensely. Our last house had a back gate. When we moved here I thought it would be ok but when we had the back garden worked on it was an absolute pain. I am seriously considering getting a gate put in on our back garden wall. The only thing I do like is the security it gives us as it would be tricky to get in our back garden.

I have lived in a mid terrace and in the streets round me it’s the dominant house type. Bins kept in a bin store at the front of the house. Small bike shed at front too. Annoying, but not a deal breaker and becomes normal very quickly.

Getting the back garden landscaped was interesting though! I just made sure I did it before I re-decorated the hallway.

Our house only has access through the house for the garden. It’s a bit annoying when you want to take big things through but no major deal.

This - it would be a no from me

Depends on the scale of the garden I would say. Many many houses have no side access but most of them have smaller gardens so wouldn’t have mature trees needing work etc. I don’t see it as a
deal breaker to bring a few pruning or grass clippings through the house but if I had a massive garden I’d think twice

It's really not the end of the world and if you love it otherwise then I'd just go for it.

I'd not even view a house like that, sorry.

When we were trying to sell our house a fair proportion of the potential buyers said they were put off by the lack of side / back access.

I wouldn’t buy another property without a side / back gate. It’s been a PITA to get things done in the garden.

Yup it's a deal breaker. We've had roofers or other tradespeople scaling our back wall to get in. And the amount of stuff that gets traipsed through the house. It's a huge pita and will make certain repairs really hard to do. Do NOT buy these houses!

A lot of people have extended their houses into the side return and lost the access, presumably because they value the extra space in their house more than the ability to move bins, mowers etc outside their house rather than through it.

Personally I wouldn't, as I like my side access too much. Not just the bins and mower, but allowing the window cleaner to go round the side without having to go through the house. Plus when we had our back garden landscaped, they could bring the mini digger through the side return (especially as we made the top bar above the side gates removable, so there were no height issues either). Our side return is also wide enough to have a couple of big Keter boxes along it as additional garden storage.

If I were to extend our house, I'd go further back rather than into the side return. Fortunately this is an option open to us, I appreciate others might not be able to. I don't think I'd view properties without some kind of outside access (side return or ginnel).

It really depends what's more important to you, the access or the additional liveable space.