Neighbour owns our verge

[MsMarvellous]

We recently moved into a rural property and it transpires that our next door neighbour actually owns the verge between our property boundary and the road. This wasn't picked up before purchase as the plans were not correctly filed (I had to go to the land registry with a SIM application to find this out). This looks like it may scupper our plans to put an additional entrance onto our property if this cannot be resolved.

I wondered if anyone on here has any experience of similar or of the law in this area. Our instinct says that the first thing to do would be to approach the neighbour openly in order to see whether we can just buy the verge that runs along our boundary. Obviously at an agreed sum and with us paying the legal costs. However, I wondered if there is anything in law about access to your own property, crossing from a road etc, that may supercede any need to do this?

Our neighbours seem pleasant, but it appears they had difficulties with the old owner, and so it's quite a sensitive situation that we have landed in. I would be grateful for any thoughts, advice, and views from anyone in the know.

Thanks

Check whether you have a right of access first for the current entrance, Otherwise you could be landlocked. This should have been identified by your conveyance.

If the verge is separate to your main entrance, then I suspect the neighbour kept it to ensure no overdevelopment.

You need to look for your easement rights. That will explain your position. Tbh your solicitor should have been/or should now, be over this.

I’m not sure there is much you can do in this situation, if they sold the land then would it effect anything with their property? Value etc

This sounds odd that it hasn’t been properly declared when the house sale was completed? Surely your paperwork is incorrect? I own my next door neighbours back gate access, I’m not sure if they are even aware! I imagine this could cause problems should they want to sell in the future!

Hi @Rollercoaster1920 - we definitely have access to the current parking area at the front of the house that directly abuts the road. That's confirmed.

I suspect you are right, which will be a pain, but not the end of the world and not something we will fall out over. I suspect that with some sensitive handling it may well be resolvable. Our intentions are simple and not onerous, so hopefully we will be able to resolve. The main issue being we have limited access to what is a large garden so skips, and clearing material etc, are an issue. We can access the land via their gate but need permission each time, which is a bind.

Just for clarity - we do have access to a small drive at the front of the property. The garden is large and long and we want to be able to have our own access at the top. but that would mean breaking over the verge which is privately owned by our neighbour rather than by our property. The 2 house were originally owned as one plot, and for whatever reason why it was divided by the family back then, the verge was retained by the other house. I am guessing an interesting feud!

If your garden is big and long, maybe the verge was allocated to the other house when the plot was subdivided to ensure that subsequent owners of your property weren't able to build another house at the other end of your garden with access from the far end.
Could you discuss buying the strip of verge in conjunction with a covenant to forbid developing the garden?

"Could you discuss buying the strip of verge in conjunction with a covenant to forbid developing the garden?" - that would be something we would be very happy to do. I like this idea. Thank you.