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Local authority claims a right of way over my property: how can I check whether this is true?
My local authority claims to have a right of way over my property but they won't tell me why or on what basis they wish to make that claim. I now want to think about selling my home and I realise it is blighted by this. Can I force the authority to tell me what their claim is? I don't want to go to court just to get an answer to what the claim is, because it may take some research to asses the validity of it. I might, after all, want to concede a genuine claim of substance.
You should almost certainly have been advised of the existence of any such right of way when you purchased the property. If not, it is likely that your Solicitor was negligent.
You need to ascertain whether any right of way exists.
Assuming your property is registered you can obtain full details of your title (ownership) from the land registry at http://www.landreg.gov.uk/
You need to request 'office copies' of your property which can be done online.
When you have these you should be able to see any restrictions (rights of others) on the register and any rights of way. Normally the register will refer to another document which contains the actual right of way (if it exists) and normally you can obtain copies of these as well.
If there is no evidence of a right of way on the deeds then the only other possibility are rights of access gained over time and these can only be asserted/proved by weighing up the evidence.
Alternatively simply ask the council to prove their right of way, but bear in mind any 'dispute' will have to be disclosed when selling the property.
Please come back to us if you want us to get a solicitor to assist you on a fixed fee basis.
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