would this put you off buying a house?

[carlajean]

We've been doing the searches on a house we're buying and found out something that has made us think twice about the purchase. Behind the house are 3parking places, owned by us, but the neighboring two houses have the exclusive right to use two of them. They are lower than the ground floor of the house. The garden of the house is the roof of the 3 carports, effectively a cement bridge with decking and a raised bed on it.
We have found out that we are responsible for all three parking spaces and, more worryingly, the concrete 'bridge' above them that our garden is on.
It's a recent build, and has obviously passed building regs, but we are concerned about problems that might come up in the long term. Are we over-thinking this, or would you think twice about this house?

[MoreBeta]

If it puts you off then it will put someone else off.

Sounds like the concrete bridge was put in to allow the developer to 'steal' extra space for the new build to take place. Typically a development in many streets can now only take place if there is parking allocated on the site and not on the street.

Presumably the next door neighbours were also given the parking spaces to buy them off and persuade them not to object.

Your issues will only come to light if the concrete structure starts to decay and if that happens you will face a big bill at a time you might not be able to afford it. IF I were going to buy this I would set aside a pot of money to cover a total rebuild of the 'bridge' and subtract that from the price I would be prepared to pay for the house.

To be honest unless it was a screaming bargain I wouldn't bother. More hassle than its worth.