Pulled out before exchange?!

[FTEngineerM]

I’ve read this happens in 25-30% of cases but I didn’t prepare for it to be us.

Side access on someone else’s land (told this at viewing).

Load bearing walls removed in 1985 and we don’t have paper work.

We couldn’t have been more upfront about the side access and there’s evidence online that the walls weren’t there a decade ago. What are we meant to do? Is this going to be it and we won’t be able to sell?

Were the buyers put off by the access or their mortgage company? Can you get an indemnity for the wall?

I don't believe building regs were even a thing in 1985. Did you remove the wall so do you know if it was supported correctly? I would have thought if there's been no issues in 35+ years then it's not an issue now. You could get a structural engineers report to say it is ok. It's too long ago for the council to issue a regularisation certificate. Some one is bound to suggest an indemnity but not sure what value that would have. The council isn't going to ask for a cert now.
As for side access - what does that mean? But yes you can only make sure that the agent is up front about it, and many people don't have any side access at all so shouldn't be a deal breaker.

Good question, I’m not sure it sounded according to estate agent that they were spooked by something solicitor said re: side access. It’s just a walkway, concrete, down the side of the house that leads to our back door. It’s on next doors land but there was an easement of something but our solicitor got an indemnity saying it can’t be blocked when we bought it.

The walls, we didn’t remove the walls, we bought it 4 years ago and they weren’t there then. The person who sold it to us, they weren’t there when they bought it either. They were done when it was extended in the 80s.

It would have fallen down by now if it was a problem 😬 it’s 120 years old. So can a structural engineer check it retrospectively? I’m assuming it might be good to get anyway incase it happens again.

So you own the land directly outside your back door? That would put me off a bit tbh.

Don't own!

A structural survey or structural engineer should be able to confirm that the structure is sound.

Is there a Right Of Way over the neighbour’s land to your side access? Some people are very neurotic about any slight complexity like that.

Really sorry you have been messed about.

Yeah, I feel I’ve butchered this.
Our land is one long rectangle and our house is at the front of it and takes up 100% of the width of the land.
When next door built their property on their land they left a nice path for the owners at the time to still freely access from the street. Diagram attached, white X is our house green rectangle is access and red x is Nextdoors land.

There’s still rear lane access to like with most terrace houses.

Back door is nowhere near the green rectangle/side access but it allows access to garden by back door.

@HomeHomeInTheRange I think it’s something like that(not great with the wording in house sales😂) we’ve given them all the documents though, our solicitor was pretty heavy handed when we bought it about securing it when we bought it so there’s all sorts of statements of truth from neighbours/owners and an indemnity for the full value of our house if it’s blocked.

Mine pulled out just before exchange too, we rented the house out instead so we didn’t lose the house we were buying because I didn’t want the delay of starting all over again.

@Firawla that was a great idea. Glad you still got to keep your dream house.

We're buying a newbuild and have already signed rental agreement for the period in between so atm we're paying rent and mortgage. Very very frustrating. I don't think we could switch to buy to let here?

Far less of an issue if you have rear access.

TBH if I was the neighbour I would not want to establish a permanent access across my land and in terms of future sale this arrangement is probably a greater barrier to sale to their house than yours!

If I was a buyer I'd want a structural engineers report for the wall. I worked in litigation and had 2 cases where houses were condemned years after the fact. Lack of structural support was only noticed when the new owners started work of their own. Neither set of owners had a leg to stand on legally speaking because their surveyors had all sorts of caveats about not guaranteeing bits they couldn't see/ inspect.

We had five buyers drop out before exchange on the one property. From experience, I think that if they were really keen, they wouldn't be bothered by the access.

@HomeHomeInTheRange

Far less of an issue if you have rear access.

TBH if I was the neighbour I would not want to establish a permanent access across my land and in terms of future sale this arrangement is probably a greater barrier to sale to their house than yours!

Luckily they're 80+ and will be passing it to their daughter when their time comes. It's hard to convey to a prospective buyer but it really is one of those things where they paint their wall once a year and that's it. They literally left the path for our house when they built theirs. But then the solicitors get involved and want things legally binding and what not. In reality it's unnecessary.

Definitely going to go for the structural engineers report, interestingly the three we called today all said pretty much the same 'we are getting more and more of these calls, it seems like solicitors/surveyors are trying to cover their own backs but it's unnecessary if the building has been altered 3-4 decades ago prior to paperwork being commonplace'.

@ukborn

I don't believe building regs were even a thing in 1985. Did you remove the wall so do you know if it was supported correctly? I would have thought if there's been no issues in 35+ years then it's not an issue now. You could get a structural engineers report to say it is ok. It's too long ago for the council to issue a regularisation certificate. Some one is bound to suggest an indemnity but not sure what value that would have. The council isn't going to ask for a cert now. As for side access - what does that mean? But yes you can only make sure that the agent is up front about it, and many people don't have any side access at all so shouldn't be a deal breaker.

There have been building regulations since at least 1666.

When selling a family house, I found the council had records of work done around 1960.