Buying house on unadopted road HELP

[FancyBacon]

We had an offer accepted on a house last week and have just found out it’s on an unadopted road.

The road is currently in pretty bad condition with huge potholes and overgrown trees.
It is about 60m long and consists of about 10 terrace houses on one side and 4 detached houses the other side. Nearly every property on the road is rented out or turned into flats/hmo’s. There doesn’t seem to be any agreement in place between homeowners.

What do I need to be aware of? Will this be sellable in the future? Will a mortgage lender have issues with this? Please help!

Don't buy it!

Without an existing legal obligation you will find it impossible to get the other homeowners to contribute to the road maintenance. You will either have to fully fund the work yourself or allow the deterioration to continue

You could maybe fill the holes with gravel to make it usable. Are any of the trees dangerously tall/big or are they able to be trimmed back with one of those long cutting poles?

Are you sure you want to buy a house in a street of hmos and rented flats? It sound like it could be hard work.

I wouldn't buy it. If the road was in a good condition with an active management plan to maintain I would think about it. In poor condition with no easy way to combine with other freeholders to maintain - no way.

Not unless you’re happy to pay all on your own for pothole repair, tree cutting, drainage etc, or deal with the longterm consequences of a badly degraded road, both in terms of your own usage of it, and in terms of potential buyers being put off when they view.

(I used to live on one, but it was only a few yards long, and had only us and another neighbour living on it, so minimal issues.)

I wouldn’t buy it without a formal agreement in place regarding maintenance of the road.

I'd be worried. There's a lot of this locally in village settings and posh roads on the city boundary. But the fact that no agreement has been mentioned to you and most of the houses are rented would worry me.

No chance. Pull out

Personally I'd run a mile, you are responsible for the cost of maintaining the road and given the state of it clearly your neighbours aren't doing that.

You need to check things like pipes running under the road, what happens if the tree roots cause issues for example and do the bin men still come down it if it's that bad?

Regarding re-selling, yes I think it will be an issue, just imagine the state in say 5 years.

Sorry, no. Fuck that.

Unadopted roads are the collective responsibility of all freeholders and gathering everyone to make a decision about it will be a logistical nightmare

Even petitioning them to agree to have the road adopted would be fraught

I wouldn’t do it. I live on an unadopted road but all of the houses are owner occupied and there is one sainted man who is an accountant who has taken on the job of administering the road fund. He sends us a bill each year and we all pay it because we are nice middle class people, and he organises works and pays for them and sends us annual accounts. But if someone refused to pay it is difficult to see what we could do about it, and the organisation of road fund and repairs/resurfacing etc is thankless and if he stopped doing it and nobody else volunteered it would be impossible. If your road is all absent landlords of hmo properties nobody will ever do or pay for anything. Walk away.

I would not buy a house on an unadopted road unless there was a very clear legal agreement in place regarding maintenance and the road was in excellent condition so it was clearly being enforced. Even then I'd be applying to whoever dealing with roads to get it adopted. You can only get a road adopted if it is in excellent condition and I believe you still have to pay.

A friend of mine lives on an unadopted road. Her neighbour uses it heavily but because there is nothing on the deeds about contributing to cost, refuses to pay a penny towards repairs. It's caused no end of resentment and arguments.
Unless you can afford to pay for everything and not stress about neighbours not doing the same, I would not buy it.

Bought a converted barn, with an unadopted, pot holed lane, it fed 3 properties, got all the paper work done etc but there was nothing on the mtce, the road gradually got far worse, mainly because one householder was a DiY freak, had 4 people all using cars and had lots of lorries delivering stuff, but refused point blank to help out out with mtce!

So it fell on us and the other neighbour to fill pot holes with council road scrapings.

With a lot of properties and no agreement in place, i'd run a mile.

I loved in an unadopted mostly Victorian houses,we had a brand new maisonette. Surely you could tell by the state that it's unadopted
The HMO and rented would put my off, so many people either tennants or the landlords would not be interested in up keep. Many years after we moved, every house was forced to pay thousands each for the road to be properly surfaced, which is another factor to consider..I have relatives who have lived for years in a rough unadopted road,up a hill, terrifying in snow and ice, but in a gorgeous position on ash down forest,so they don't mind.
.

Lived not loved

Did you not spot this when you viewed?

No I wouldnt buy it and I would pull out.

Shame for the owner that you've got this far and only now have realised.

This far? We had an offer accepted on Monday but it hasn’t even be taken off the market yet. I’d say lucky buyer we spotted it this quick.

The seller should’ve told you as any prospective buyer is going to find out- the seller is wasting everyone’s time by not disclosing or hoping someone buys cash without conveyancing

@soupyspoon

'Shame for the owner that you've got this far and only now have realised.'

Putting an offer in is the first step after a viewing! 🤔

We live on an unadopted road, so my first thought was, "not a problem".

Reading on, though, the problem you would have is most of the other properties are tenanted. I'm not implying tenants make poor neighbours, but I doubt they would feel chipping in to maintain the road is their responsibility.

There are 10 houses in our road; we all fill potholes, etc, outside our own houses and collectively maintain the frontage of a house owned by elderly and infirm neighbours. Twice a year we buy a load of pea gravel and get together to spread it out and share a few bottles of wine and nibbles afterwards. For now, it works.

Not really, you viewed it and didnt see the state of the road, didnt see the different road name sign format?

Whats the point you're making in relation to my post?

It may be ok, it may be a show stopper, but it will certainly slow things down and cost more as your solicitor investigates - a factor to consider if you want to move quickly or have a tight budget. If you’re mortgaging the property, the provider will want assurances as it may affect the property’s value.

Please don’t underestimate the costs and time involved. Big potholes are not solved by temporary patches - it would probably need resurfacing, and if the poor condition is caused by something like drainage issues, you may need to fix that too. Tree surgery is pretty expensive. And if something bad happens due to the poor condition of the road, who does the liability sit with?

I am familiar with this due to previously having a business premises on an un adopted road. We went ahead and it was ok but our solicitor drew up an agreement that others on the road signed (only 3 others - all businesses who wanted the road sorted), and we made sure to lower our offer to reflect the potential problems.

The very beginning of the road is adopted, so street name sign is exactly what you’d expect from a council maintained street. We noticed the pot holes but as it’s a very private side street and most houses are rented initially thought perhaps it just hadn’t been picked up on.

Again, I’ve picked this up incredibly quickly. It seems most people don’t realise houses are on unadopted roads until near completion.