Path between houses - with diagram

[Lavendersquare]

Next door and my house are identical except that the gap between the houses is wider next door which means that they have a walkway whereas I can't walk down our gap because it's too narrow. The walkway that next door have has actually been blocked off for years as they never used it.

The house next door has just been advertised for sale it's currently empty and has been refurbished after being tenanted for at least 9 years. The gap is approximately 1.5m wide by 10m long.

I suggested to DH that we should approach the current owner and ask if we could buy the bit between our houses so that we can have a proper gap/path. We would obviously agree to next door having access should they need to do any work to their house etc.

Has anyone any experience of doing something similar? And any idea of the potential cost?

I've attached a rough sketch to show what is there now and what I have in mind.

surely the houses mean that you can’t widen the gap. Am I missing something?

You can ask the owner to sell it you. They'll either say yes or no!

I think it would make his house less sellable so he’ll likely say no.

Does neighbour have side access on the other side, i.e. is it detached?

Have you checked the title to both properties to be certain that the fence is in the correct place?

you can ask but it is unlikely the neighbour will want to sell. how much money would you offer for the path? it is very hard to value that kind of thing. if the neighbour wanted 10% of the value of his house, what would you say?

houses used to be build with a shared path between - check the deeds and see if that is the case. it is possible the fence should not be there at all.

There is no benefit to the seller to enter into negotiations.
You would need to make him a very attractive proposition.
It could delay, become unnecessarily complex/compromise his house sale
You would need to offer to pay his legal fees in addition to your own.

Is there a way to make it a joint shared access with two new gates, one each at the rear?

But yes, check the Land Registry deeds online (easy to purchase for both properties) to make sure they didn’t previously do a land grab?