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!

Get a 4x4 and crack on? Sorry to be serious, we live on an unadopted road and it’s been fine but it’s six houses and we just pay someone a couple hundred pounds to bung some gravel down every couple of years. But the key thing is most of the neighbours are sensible. What you should check though is that your house has a right of way over it.

As this thread shows if you go ahead you need to do so knowing that quite a few other people wont look at your property when you want to sell again.

If it was a road of naice middle class well kept houses I'd consider it. Like a ppl above mentioned, they are likely to maintain.

As you describe it, I'd pull out

I would pull out.

It's a shame but it sounds problematic. I think the bank's solicitor wouldn't like it either if you're getting a mortgage.

If they're all renters, no one else will be putting their hands in their pockets to deal with repairs. Do you even have a legal vehicular right of way? It's a legal nightmare.

Tbh I’d be more put off by the hmos.

I think if a lot of them are rented then the landlords won’t care too much about the road and maintenance and is probably walk away.

Some councils have a programme for adopting streets like this. It gets brought up to standard and the residents are billed - I think it's via a legal process so you have to pay. I'd check with the local authority to see if they have any such programmes before you pull out.

I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole tbh. Friends of mine did and the road is a nightmare, they’re always trying to patch it up but it’s full of massive pot holes because nobody wants to pay to get it done properly.

I bought on an unadopted BOATS Road. There are three houses including mine on this road and yes the road can get pothole-y. However the road is used by the whole village to walk dogs down and stroll along. When the road got too bad a neighbour hassled the council saying it was an accident waiting to happen and so on and the road was scraped and graded within a few months. Don’t panic the council does have a requirement to keep people safe.

Why on earth would you put an offer in without getting appropriate legal advice first.

That she hasn’t got very far in the buying process 🙄

We viewed a house in an unadopted road, it was clear on the details this was the case. The road was in good order, but bizarrely no one was able to park on the road. The estate agent even asked us to move our car onto the driveway of the property at the viewing 😳

The hmos and lots of rentals would bother me more than the unadopted road to be honest.

Things you need to be aware of is that any utilities consider the home owner responsible up to the public road- you could be responsible for water supply and electricity for the whole length of the road (if there was an issue with yours). You'll also be responsible for the upkeep of the road. Get the solicitor to check if there a deed on the house about share of responsibility - if there is then you can split costs of road repairs with other owners, but you need them to agree to the necessity of the upkeep!

We did live in an unadopted cul-de-sac previously but it was only 11 owner occupied larger houses and we self managed it well as everybody got on. In this case I think you stand no chance of managing it and I’d be reluctant to buy. Also I don’t miss the mud and potholes come wintertime even though we tried to keep it in good order.

If you do buy be careful filling any holes yourself.
Anyone falls over and you will be blamed and held accountable for damages
to cars or people.

Not a chance, because the majority of the houses are occupied by people not responsible for the maintenance of it. This will be even more of a nightmare than if you all owned and occupied.

I’d be very careful, the seller can take out an indemnity policy but ultimately it needs something in place that says maintenance is payable by all the houses and if they are rented / HMO’s are the landlords going to want to pay the additional expense. It could end up being more costly in the long run

The house we lived in until a few years ago, the house our children grew up
in, was on an unadopted road - it was great for the kids on the street because nobody was ever speeding down it (except the parcelforce delivery van). It was a street of nice houses with a very rural outlook, I might have thought twice if it was the setting you describe but we loved it.

I found out a house I had offered on was on an unadopted road - after a lot of research, I pulled out.

What indemnity policy would that be exactly? The risk here it that the neighbours refuse to pay for their share of repairs / maintenance of the road because no agreement exists. There is no indemnity policy that would cough up for the road to be repaired if this risk materialised.

I'm guessing a large part of the house's appeal is the price, which probably seems like very good value for the amount house/location.

There's a reason for that.

It will be complete headache and costly. You need to decide whether it's "cheap" enough to compensate for that.

Is there not some kind of bond in place with the council? Could you ring up the highways department and ask them if it’s likely to be adopted in future?

I can only speak of our experience. We’ve lived on one for 8 years, though only 4 houses. So appreciate different from your scenario. We’ve had zero issues and no maintenance work needed, I don’t anticipate this to change any time soon. It’s just such a non-issue. We live in a semi rural area where this setup is common.

It’s good you’ve found out this soon. We’re selling our house and were ready to exchange and our buyers pulled out for this reason. It’s been hugely stressful. So emotionally drained from everything.

It doesn't sound great. FiL lives on an unadopted road and it's lovely because either creates community, they all meet to discuss the road, there's someone in charge of money, they all trim the verge together and it's beautifully maintained. However, these are all retired middle class homeowners. It does not sound like anyone on this road is bothered.
I'd suggest before pulling out, just asking the owners and double checking with solicitors in case somethings in place, but otherwise you will end up with potholes or funding it all yourself.