persimmon homes want to talk to me about adoption of the highway?! anyone know anything about this? the alley thats near my house,needs to be made wider in order for the council to adopt the highway

[whiteandyellowiris]

i think persimmon want to get rid of there obligation to fund the highway and pass it in to the council

the council wont adopt it till everything is in order

and apperntly the alley near my house needs making smaller

there was a card put through my door today asking me to call them and when i did the man was super shadey
and v v cagey and now its setting off alarm bells

he said it may even work in our advantage and when i said well hows that he would nt say....

i think[and only think, because this guy was not being straight] they want to take a bit of our land, but apperntly its land that not actually ours?

he kept saying he needs to come out and do a site visit to show us what he means
as its too compliaceted to expalin overthephone
but whne i said my dh wont be avalible for a while as hes just gone back to work after two weeks paternity leave
he said he would send it all in a letter

but he seemed v dodgy to me

and i said

well if its too complicated for you to expalin over the phone

surley its too complicated to explain in a letter

i got a very bad vibe from this guy

he seemed v cagey

any advice

You are right to be wary. What's in it for you? Sounds like the company will make money on the deal and you will be worse off. It 'may even' work to your advantage means the likelihood is it will be a lot of hassle with no benefit to you.

i think, what they want to do, is down the side of our drive way is a row of bushes.
i think they want to take some of them away in order to make the alley way wider
but he said that the bushes are technically not on our land

i really did not like his attitude of not being straight and direct

unless they are worried we are going to demand a huge sum of money or somethign for them to take a bit of the land

thats the only reason i can think of that they would be so cagey

they will surely save alot of money, if they pass their responsbility for maintaing the road over to the council

i think i will have to be tough and not be rushed into anything and make sure i get some advice

Sounds dodgy to me. What do they mean by 'technically' not on your land? If they owned the land, they would not bother approaching you, would they?

Definitely get some independent legal advice before you agree to anything.

just looked at our land registry details and i think, i can see what he means

at the moment the entrance to the ally is very straight
think like a T shape
but on the plans its more like a Y shape
so it hink that wouuld mean a corner of the bushes taken out and turned into pathway in order to make the entrance to the alleyway wider

cant see why that would help nythign though as there a lamppost right on the corner and the alleyway is wide anyway so even if you cut down the corner of the bushes and turned it into alley way
you couldnt walk on that actual part as tehres a lampost there!

i know what you mean, if it actually want our land, surely they could just do it?unless the fact its been like this for 19 years means they can't just do it

Go to www.gardenlaw.co.uk/phpBB2/index.php (Gardenlaw) for advice*

*I do not have any connection with this site btw.

Very straightforward explanation of highways stuff.

eg:
My deeds show that I own the land you say is highway. Does this mean it isn’t highway?

As the Highway Authority, we rarely own the land which the highway runs over.

Most people own the land up to the middle of their road, but don’t realise it is only the subsoil that they own and the control of the land and its surface lies with the Highways Authority.

Great, huh ?

I would just go straight to the council and ignore the Persimmon guy.

Hi, please just call your council and ask for the council highway engineer for your area. Get him on the phone and ask him to explain what is going on. They are normally helpful old boys, and will explain in lay mans terms what is holding up the road adoption. If you can't get hold of them after reasonable attempt, then please submit to your council a freedom of information request asking for a copy of all correspondence, emails, reports and meeting notes concerning the road / road adoption. By all means, arrange to meet with persimmon. Let them explain what they want and take it away to think about in the context of the info you find out from the Council. Road adoption is not an overnight thing so don't worry, no one is going to ambush you with a contract or shove you in the boot of a car unless you sign something. The bloke at persimmon probably is a graduate engineer and has no idea about doing land deals hence he sounded dodgy. He probably is flapping about wondering what the heck he is doing having being given this problem to sort out.. Kind regards