Resurfacing an unadopted road

[AmazingGrace16]

Has anyone gone through this process?
I live on an unadopted road with 13 properties on. Part of the road was resurfaced years ago by the residents who own that stretch. The rest is pretty ropey.
First property on the road is unlikely to want to contribute but their section is the most damaged.
There are other residents who don't drive so who may not want to contribute.

Check your deeds

Watching with interest. We also live on an unadopted Road and I'm wondering the same.

I think what is supposed to happen is a group contribution but as you say..It might be tricky to get everyone on board and to a good timelime (people may need to save for a long time). But i wouldnt say it's a good enough excuse that not having a car means they dont have to pay for the road. They will need to use it whether walking, running, cycling etc.

Deeds aren't helpful when we are talking about the entire road. We are all responsible for maintaining our section.

You're right about still using the road. I've got a feeling there will be so many people going into impossible detail that it won't happen. For example if a house has development work would they have to pay more to upkeep as they had greater heavy usage? It's a bit of a minefield to be honest!

I think toid need to keep it as simple as possible. Split it evenly otherwsie it will become too difficult and people may pull out.

Is there some kind of neighbourhood committee where you can raise the subject? Or will you just go round door to door to gather thoughts? How long have you been there? Maybe they have been through it before and know the drill.

Have you explored getting it up to standard to get it adopted by the council?

Will add value to everyone's properties...

Going forward, try and set-up a neighbourhood management committee that raises annual fees from all houses to form a sinking fund to avoid large money requests infrequently. This will also support property values.

Deeds are helpful then. You are all responsible for your section. Who is responsible for making sure this happens? And what happens if someone doesn’t maintain their section? The answer will be in your deeds

No it won't Japanese

Yes it will.

No it isn't. Our deeds are extremely vague

Yes a committee is something I think that will need to be established. The council won't adopt unless it's in an adoptable state and most of the residents don't want it to be adopted once we've got it up to standard. It's the getting it up to standard regardless that we are looking at doing initially. I'm interested to know why an adopted road would add house value? Values on our road range from 400-1.2million and we have been protected from not being included in conservation zone through being private.

Honestly the deeds provide minimal information. They don't even say which fences belong to who.
From speaking to neighbours it appears theirs are the same.

You may not have the right to improve other sections of the road. If you have a right to use it then you will usually have an implied right to repair it but not actually improve it.

That said if everyone agrees in principle with the work being done then it is just a question as to how it is split.

One of the problems with private roads is that positive covenants aren't enforceable against successive land owners.

Because once the road is adopted you don't have to pay for or be responsible for repairs!!! Repairing a road properly is ££££££

It may be worth investigating how can make the road private and still get it adopted...

Watching with interest as we live on a private road too and it’s not in the best of conditions. All our neighbours have lived here forever and are all at war with each other! We moved in 5 years ago and stupidly thought it would all be easy! Bits of the Lane belong to different people and the ones at the very top ein three businesses from their house including swimming lessons in their pool with lots of parents and kids in cats coming up the lane (and using my drive to pass each other!) and they therefore obviously use the lane much more than everyone else. Also part of their planning consent to build their houses included improving the lane which they have never done. Obviously all the nieghbours think they should pay to resurface it but up to now they haven’t.

I have now joined the side that thinks the top houses should pay and would probably refuse to pay of someone asked me to. Our deeds just say we would need to contribute if the Lane was ever brought up to adoptable standards by the owner of the bit in front of our house (which is our 87 year old next door neighbour)

We don't want it adopted and are fine with the implications that has.

One neighbour thinks there may be grants we can access so I'll look into that.

Yes I can see your point about the businesses having to contribute more. Luckily we don't have that issue but I know there will be residents who will say they don't have to contribute as much because they don't use the road as much. The first house being one of them.

Even if you can get everyone to agree you may find it hard to get a good contractor to do the work - it only takes one person to pull out and the whole contract will collapse. It’s a minefield - a friend tried to organise similar for her private road (again with the people at the entrance not wanting to contribute) and struggled to find contractors to quote, and the one that did pulled out when one neighbour started being awkward.