'Legal' access to house

[xmxtom]

Hi,

I am close to exchange on a property and it just came to light that there is no legal right of way (in the tile) to access it from the road.

The setup it something like this:
public road -> pavement -> stripofland -> driveway -> house
The stripofland is registered to another property and the owner is known.

The current owner lived there for ~20y, is willing to write a statement of truth that the access was not blocked, the owner did not complain, etc.
For some reason unfortunately the seller does not agree to apply for prescriptive right of way, and the only solution from solicitor is to buy indemnity insurance.

I am about to pull out due to risk of buying a landlocked house and relying on insurance companies to find a solution.
Am I exaggerating?

No I don't think you are exaggerating at all, that is a very good reason to pull out of a house sale.

It’s called a ransom strip. Have a Google.

I’d insist on the prescriptive right of way or pull out.

What is the indemnity insurance indemnifying against? This is what I would be making sure I had absolutely covered off.

i would also be wary of your solicitors advice if this has only just come to light when you’re about to exchange..

The indemnity is supposed to cover the cost of finding alternative options to access the house in case the owner of the land decides to restrict access, probably trying to negotiate to buy the land.
This is not the solicitor's fault at all, since the beginning it was clear that the title drawings are not very clear and after a lot of checks we ended up in this situation.

I decided to pull out if this is not resolved legally.

My old house had this, the owner was the council in our case. If you have a right of way marked on land registry it should be fine, mine did

Well this is the issue, the owner is not the council and the right of way does not exist.
I would be more than happy with a right of way in the deeds, but the owner doesn't want to do it which raises big question marks.

Walk away. If the owner of that little strip of land sells it. You could find yourself "locked in" and dealing with a faceless, unreasonable cunt, who would like nothing more than to bankrupt you and drive you to desperation. If the property had a big wall in front of it that blocked the access, would have even looked at it?

I would not be buying this and I doubt anyone else will. The owner needs to sort it out.

This is the seller's problem. Don't make it yours.

Either the seller/seller's solicitor obtains the prescriptive right or a right of way to cross the land/strip, or you walk away.

A prescriptive right after 20 years of continuous use should be easy enough to obtain, so why wouldn't the current owner do it? Without that right in place, a future owner of the strip of land could block your use of it and then you become the owner of a landlocked property, which would be very difficult to sell.

This problem will come up again with any future buyer, so the current owner will have to deal with it eventually.

"public road -> pavement -> stripofland -> driveway -> house"

Where does the strip of land go that the pavement does not, or what is under it? Who own's it and why do they want access to it? Your strip of land is called a "ransom strip", but it's placement is interesting. Usually a ransom strip is granted where someone needs access to their land beyond someone else's. In your case, why does the owner of the other property need to access it through a ransom strip? Does it not have it's own join to the public path?

I remember this being a big problem near where I used to live. The Lord of the Manor sold the title to a local businessman who then transferred it to a property management firm. They then proceeded to demand 6% of the property value from homeowners for the right to vehicular access to their homes. There were a lot of people affected, not one or two.

After nearly 20 years of legal wrangling, the case ended up in the House of Lords who finally found in favour of the homeowners.

If you walk along some pavements, there is a frontage for the houses, a pavement and sometimes there's a strip of land, sometimes with trees, between the pavement and the kerb or between the frontage and the pavement

It is often just a strip running along side the pavement

If someone owns that strip, then any dropped kerb to a driveway has to be negotiated, once with the local authority and once with the property owner holding the land hostage

It's mean, but legal

This is not the standard definition of 'ransom strip'.
The house was built ~30y ago by a builder who bought an end of terrace with a big garden, and built another house adjoining the existing one, becoming the new end of terrace.
Half of the land in front of the initial garden was owned by the initial property, while the other half was owned by another property.
When the new house was built, the initial garden/land has been split in half and now the new house needs a right of way to access the road, as that land in front belong to some else.

That's even worse.

To get to the house you have to trespass onto someone else's land.

What if they put up a gate?

Or the current owners sell up and so.eone else moves in and puts up a fence?

Walk away.

It'll be unmortgageable.

The solicitor confirmed that it is mortgageable if I take indemnity for absence of easement.
After reading all replies I am now 100% sure that the only way is through having the right of way written in the deeds and this is for the vendor to resolve.
I am starting to look at other houses already because the chances are almost 0 with this one.

Thanks all for replying!

Can you draw a simple diagram? Just to satisfy my curiosity as I can’t quite picture what you mean.

They can’t want to sell very badly if they won’t do this for you.

Attached a (bad) drawing.
The land in green belongs to someone else.

Thing is, every potential buyer will come up against this issue and need to pull out. So if the vendor wants to sell they need to sort this.

I think you are doing the right thing

Exactly this. Leave them to it, OP, and find somewhere without these challenges!

This every time. It's a mess.