House on non adopted road

[HesterRoon]

My dc has been looking for a house and has found one-great area and nice inside but is on a road which isn’t adopted by the local council. A Victorian terrace. The road has a few bumps and cracks and wondered if it’s more hassle than it’s worth. It also has a tanked cellar but not signed off by building regs. It’s a great house apart from that-would this put you off? My feeling is they should find somewhere without these issues but wonder if I’m being over cautious?

who owns the road?

and if there are no known owners, who maintains it and is it formalised? Or just a friendly agreement with some neighbouring properties? we looked at a property recently on an unadopted road and there was no legal right of access to it from the nearest highway, and no known owners, so it was deemed a title defect by our conveyancer. we pulled out for other reasons but our buyers offered an indemnity, which our lender hadn't made a decision on before we pulled out.

Family live on an unadopted road and the bald fact is that no one maintains it. So it gets potholes - no one fixes them or someone will chuck something into the holes e.g. rubble, if they have some lying around - but otherwise they just get bigger and bigger over the years. It's not ideal. And it's almost impossible to get the county council to adopt the road apparently. I know my family members tried to do this. They were unable to, despite one of them being influential on the local council (not the same as the CC).

@HesterRoon It depends if there is an enforceable contract agreement that binds all homeowners to pay for road repairs.

We have an unadopted road round the corner from us. The people on it (7 households plus a bit of a wooded area) have, we understand, had rows about it. Some are better off financially than others! The big issue was some only agreeing to repair what’s in front of their house. So would not agree to, say £21,000 by 7. Oh no. Apparently the furthest away at the end (it’s no through) were expected to pay a lot more. No one could agree. So it’s a hotch potch of repairs and no repairs. It’s not even tarmac. The house trying to organise it all is pulling out of village social events to avoid the neighbours. So - don’t do it. It can also be very very very expensive depending on surface. Getting it up to adopted standard costs a fortune too.

Tanked cellar? Is it a change of use? Or just tanked due to damp? Change of use - needs BR. Tanked due to damp and flooding - probably not.

Thanks for the replies-I don’t know who owns it-it’s a little cobbled street of Victorian terraces off a normal road. Repairs have been filled with tarmac. I’ve asked my dc to ask the agent these questions-they’ve put on offer and been accepted but haven’t started proceedings yet. It will be cheaper to walk away now than further down the line when conveyance issues come up! So the cellar is used as an office-underfloor heating and plastered but the description is very careful to say cellar that could be converted. I kind of think this could cause issues too but don’t want to be a Debbie Downer on their dream house unnecessarily!