Desperately need help answering enquiry from buyers solicitors.

[Supper16]

Background: Bought our house back in 2014. At the time it was attached on the left hand side to a commercial/industrial building which formed one part of a large plot of industrial land. Between 2015-2017 this land was sold, the buildings on it demolished and new blocks of flats put up. So far so good, apart from the usual upheaval the build went fine, we had a Party Wall Agreement for the duration of it, and we now are attached to a small block of flats so from our point of view not much has changed. We share a fence on our left (it's the same fence we shared with the industrial building, it hasn't changed).

In May this year we sold our house. All was going fine except this enquiry from the buyers solicitors, which has ground the whole process to a halt. They seem to want us to formalise with the developer of the estate next door a) access rights over to drains that run under our property from the development and b) maintenance and repair obligations to the boundary fence on our left.

We are finding it hard to establish if the solicitors want us to agree access rights, or to confirm whether there are no access rights 🙄

This is compounded by the fact that the developer is a large national building company, which has now finished the work next door. They are not going to give a fuck and we are concerned this could take months and months. We are moving across the country, have a purchase waiting on our sale, and jobs and childcare lined up. So I am really very stressed out.

I am trying to find indemnity insurance (our solicitor contacted the company they use but they didn't provide it) but as I don't truly understand the enquiry I am not sure where to start - and our solicitor has contacted the management company of the estate next door to try and get the ball rolling on this 'agreement' which I think will invalidate any insurance anyway.

I guess I'm asking if anyone has had to deal with a similar enquiry, or could shed some light on the inner workings of the solicitors minds (!), any precedent, or any advice for next steps that would be really appreciated.

Can you actually quote the enquiry word for word?

The fence is easy - just say that the fence has been there for years and you would no more expect to have an agreement with the neighbour about it than anyone else would.

Is the buyer saying that it wants the developer to formalise with you rights it may need to access its drains on your land? If so, that's for it to worry about. If it's the other way round and you may need to access drains, then unless the block of flats has been built over the drains then nothing should have changed either.

Some of what they are trying to do seems from what you've described to be a case of ticking every perfect item from a list which in reality never happens. Some may be more sensible (the drains if you can't access yours any more) - but you probably need to decide whether you're willing to have a go or whether you say to them that it is what it is and if they don't want to continue then please can they let you know and you'll withdraw from the sale.

It should be your solicitor looking to find insurance, not you! Tell them to try another indemnity insurance provider (there are loads of them). Otherwise this will end up very drawn out and time consuming

Surely this is simple. You get the land deeds for thr flats from thr land registery and your own and see if there is access rights. If there is not they have none. Thr maintenance of the fence is about who owns it. The owner is obliged to maintain it. Again the deeds should show who owns it.

This should be dealt with in a flash by your solicitor.