Would this put you off?

[BornInGlasgow]

Buying a lovely little first house, hopefully soon. It includes a garage but as it's not attached to the house I was worried it was leasehold. It's basically on a plot of waste land round the back, a block of three garages. Mine is the one in the middle. I've just had a load of search paperwork through from my Solicitor. Both the house and the garage are freehold (built in the 80s before service charges became a thing I think). So no management company to pay maintenance charges to. Great!

But... I've looked at the original deeds and it basically said all homeowners (think 6 houses) who use the drive to access the garage should reasonably be expected to pay an equal amount from time to time towards the upkeep of the shared drive and land etc. Now it's nothing posh looking, I doubt anyone gives a shit to be honest. But what if I move in then two weeks later I get a letter through the door saying all the neighbours want to get the drive resurfaced and I have to pay £2,000,000,000,000?!

Should I pull out over this? Fucking shitty garage. I've asked the Solicitor if I can just sell it and keep the house but she's not replied yet.

Who decides? Is there some sort of association? I would find it more annoying if the drive needed repair to have a neighbour who refused to pay up. Ask your solicitor how it’s decided, who hires the contractor etc. It must have been fine at some time.

I don't know :-(

I don't mind paying the odd £50 every 18 months or whatever I'm just thinking bigger more crippling costs

We have something similar, a lane that was hideously potholed. We've no formal association but some of the more organised residents got three quotes from contractors, put them all to all of us, and we decided to go ahead as a group. Tbh repairs to the car were starting to mount anyway, so it was spend money on that or a new tarmac road. So it doesn't have to be a terrible experience, but it's worth finding out what discussions may have already taken place. I wouldn't be put off buying a dream house by something like that, but you do need to look into it.

Neigh - if you don't mind me asking how much did it cost? Are you talking £200 or £2k?

With our house, there is an agreement between the 3 houses to pay for upkeep to the track to the garages. So far we have lived here 5 years and it's cost us nothing.

I think it's safe to say it's cost them nothing either! It's just shitty wasteland, rather unkempt looking but usable. I'm confused as to who actually owns it though. The plan highlights my house and my garage only. I'm assuming the neighbours own their house and their garage only. So who the fuck owns the actual drive and plot the garage block is on I don't know 🧐

The houses are nice but very small and in a cheap area. I think one of the neighbours rents the house, the other one owns. I doubt any of us are wealthy...

Ask your solicitors who owns the land.

They can't really go ahead with any renovations unless everyone agrees really. They can't force you to pay. And it seems highly unlikely anyone wants to spend a shit load of money on it.

We have this, 3 house and 5 garages (we own two and so does the other end of terrace) although the mid terrace is rented. We basically purchased the house anyway as the road was put in during the 70s, we cant actually drive down there as it's too narrow and it's pretty solid. I cant imagine us having to pay anything while we live here..

Don't pull out. It says reasonable amount so it won't be high. If there isn't much maintenance of the road happening you won't have to pay anything.

We had a similar thing for a lane we lived on. The details were more complicated but we were never asked for money in a decade.

You will need a reasonable amount of money to maintain your house. Do you have enough for that. You seem not to wait to pay more than a few hundred pounds every few years. It will cost much more than that to maintain a house. At lest 1% of the purchase price a year is the guide.

Sometimes you can buy insurance policies against that sort of thing

Mini - I don't want to be forced into paying anything towards something I don't care about by neighbours I don't know that's all. I'd rather concentrate on my house than some driveway I'll barely use.

MiniMum97 where do these figures come from? 1% of purchase price per year? Is there a document somewhere that tells you this?

OP you are missing the point that the house you are buying comes with a garage and a share in the access land for that garage. It all has a value and adds to the overall value of the house.

1% of purchase price a year for maintenance! There is no way I spend 3k a year on maintaining my house. £50 on paint maybe. The odd boiler service...3 grand!? Where on earth do you get that figure from?

OP in answer to your question, no it wouldn't put me off if I liked the house. The likelihood of it happening is very very low, and you can't be forced to pay something you don't agree with, all the residents would have to agree to the work and the price.

We've lived here 5 years and not had to pay a thing towards the garage/driveway areas which is shared by 4 houses.

I thought it was maintenance and running costs - I've certainly heard and read something similar before.

The 1% used to be the (quite good) idea is what you should allow for maintenance. However, with the prices of properties these days, that figure has become very large, so has not really kept up with the times. My second place cost me 42k (it was a long time ago!). I certainly spend 1% of that with things like paint, fixing a hole in the roof, boiler service etc.
However, I think it's a really good idea to keep something in reserve for emergencies. Urgent repairs always seem to crop up at the most inopportune moments.

@borninglasgow sorry only just seen it - it was about 1.2k I think, but it was half a mile of road, a complete resurfacing job, new speed bumps, shared amongst 15 properties. So it was a fair whack of a job but like I said, the potholes were damaging our cars & it was only getting worse. Added problem was tractors use it sometimes which is v unfair as they do a billion times more damage but don't pay... Anyway.

When we bought our house ( along side a bridleway) it stayed the farmer also had the right to use it to get down to a field down by the river. We did ponder if it would be too much hassle with farm machinery ,noise etc but we still purchased.
Tbh he goes down there about twice a year with no problems and even though it's a bridleway we've never seen a horse there either !

We have similar. A lane which services over a hundred houses with garages and access to back gardens.

We all have access and essentially own the land and if repairs ever came up then it would be agreed between everyone. No one HAS to pay the upkeep and no one can be made to either.

Ours is literally soil and stones and in the 70 years it's been there I dont think it's ever been maintained actually fair few pot holes but I think people just chuck a bag of stones in there from time to time if they are outside their house. No ones obliged to though.

We all maintain the grass verges outside our properties along our fence or garage. Some do, some dont.

The 1% rule allows for big, sporadic repairs too. Yes, you'll get £50 years (although I bet in reality you do spend more here and there on odd tiny bits and repairs), and you'll get years where the roof needs doing and 3k doesn't touch the sides.
And it will depend on how ridiculously high prices in your area are. Our flat doubled in price in 3 years but the maintenance bills didn't. They did go up though as trades got priced out of the area and charged more...

I think you can purchase an indemnity.