Right of Easement

[TheEmmaDilemma]

Can anyone help here?

I'm looking to buy a house which has a right of easement.

Basically this is a gate on the side of the terraced house next door which allows them to walk across the front of our 'would be' house and down and out of the front gate.

We have no issue with this and understand that they rarely bother to use it anyway.

Question. If it was icey for example, and they slipped and fell, would be legally be responsible for not keeping the area safe?

What could they claim in those types of scenario's?

*icy

Anyone can claim against you if they hurt yourself on your land or property - your home insurance usually covers you for personal injury

No they couldn't. They have the right to keep the surface fit for purpose, so if it isn't, they are as much to blame.

Thank you!

In England & Wales, if anyone trips or falls on your property and this causes them to be injured and they then suffer loss as a result, then they could make a claim against you, perhaps alleging that you have not maintained the path to a reasonable standard. Many Councils pay out under threat of proceedings for these claims every year. Read up about the Defective Premises Act 1972. Check your home insurance policy is the best advice... but don't let it scare you off the property if you like it.

Just because the current residents of that property rarely bother doesn't mean that this will always be the case. Someone could move in there who has a cultural background of never using the front door except for wedding days and funerals, and has many visitors from extended family every day, and then your front garden is suddenly like picadilly circus.

brokencuttlerydraw

they sue the landowner because they are the one who has the power to keep it safe. For a right of way the owner of the dominant tenement has the right to maintain the ROW. Therefore they would be suing themselves. The owner of the servient tenement (OP) has no duty to maintain the path whatsoever.

collaborate yes noted, but you will probably appreciate that how things happen in life is not always so clear cut. People will always look to claim from others if they possibly can. One situation i heard of was someone using an easement (as dominant owner) across the back of a line of terraces to access their own terraced property late at night in darkness having lost their front door keys. They made their way through the gates and then fell down a manhole where the cover had been temporarily removed by the servient owner. They were injured and successfully claimed. Which is why insurance is a good idea.

brokencuttlerydraw

I take your point about the scenario you describe, but it's not the same as slipping on uncleared ice or tripping on a crack in the surface that hasn't been repaired.

Mokaer makes a very good point. We had a house with deed of easement on it allowing neighbours through the garden. First tenants never used it, then a set of 'interesting' people moved in... they pushed motorbikes across it, people (visitors and tenants) coming and going at all hours, the police even used it when they arrived to arrest one of them...

In the end, we paid the neighbour to agree to remove it and blocked it off sharpish.

There is another thread on here about an elderly neighbour who refuses to use her front door, so all visitors go through the back across the neighbour's garden.