Where to get copy of precedent?

[beardsince1978]

Have you thought that the builders may have come to an agreement to have a wider access during the building?

Good point. AFAIK there is no evidence to show that they did that and don't forget the land transfer occurred when it was a building plot. The Law of Property Act 1925 62 (1) says:

A conveyance of land shall be deemed to include and shall by virtue of this Act operate to convey, with the land, all buildings, erections, fixtures, commons, hedges, ditches, fences, ways, waters, water-courses, liberties, privileges, easements, rights, and advantages whatsoever, appertaining or reputed to appertain to the land, or any part thereof, or, at the time of conveyance, demised, occupied, or enjoyed with, or reputed or known as part or parcel of or appurtenant to the land or any part thereof.

I would say that a land conveyed as a "Building plot with outline planning permission" would be reputed to have access suitable to bring in building materials.

You also get into the "what was the solicitor doing allowing his client to buy a building plot without access to enable building?". The land would be an allotment, not a building plot. And also, what would happen if the house burn down and had to be rebuilt? Can the vendor charge for access? In effect selling the land again.

The only rational explanation is that the words in land registry mean just what they say, access along and over the right of way (to any exit since none is specified). Also, the vendor was bending over backwards to make the sale go ahead. He'd given up 90m2 of garden for the ROW which wasn't in the original deal. Would he care about the wall? He built a new garden wall the other side of the ROW so the old garden wall was nothing to him. The only reason the wall was rebuilt was to keep Parish Council happy as they claimed it was their land, l**ing toerags! If it wasn't for PC back then the property would have direct access to road and NfH couldn't make these problems.

The other issue is in land registry the ROW is my responsibility to maintain and it is shingle. How do I do that it I can't get a dumper truck in? I have the same issue with my drive, also shingle and twice the size of the ROW. You need to get a dumper truck in to replenish the shingle. There is 20 tons on my drive and 10 ton on the ROW.

[MacadamB53]

Hi beardsince1978,

You need to get a dumper truck in to replenish the shingle.

I think a court would come to an alternative conclusion:

although one might want to get a dumper truck in to replinish the shingle because it would be far more practical/efficient to do so than the other options available, there are other options available.

kind regards, Mac

[arborlad]

You need to ask Admin to merge your threads.

[beardsince1978]

You have a point but what I was saying was that it seems inconsistent that the ROW should require me to maintain the drive and then make it difficult to do so because the ROW does allow the correct access. It's not a strong argument I would agree.

[ukmicky]

So I have been thinking about this one and my opinion is below. My opinion could be wrong but there is a good chance I’m right.

The purpose of a express ROW will stay the same forever .It doesn’t start off as one thing because you need to do something different in the beginning and then change to something else once you have done what you need to do. So if you have a right to take Lorries down it to build in the beginning you would retain that right for ever.

The user of a ROW also has a right to expect a reasonable height allowance depending on the purpose of the ROW and what type of vehicles are allowed to use it. So the question that needs resolving as I said before is what forms of vehicular traffic can use the ROW because once that’s decided the height answer becomes easy.


Every ROW will have its limits and if the limits are not expressed in the grant a court would normally look at what is reasonable based on what was envisaged at the time of granting. The land was sold with outline planning to build a house and with a vehicular ROW ,so cars and small vans can obviously use it as this land was sold with planning permission for residential use. I would say anything beyond normal residential vehicular traffic (non HGV cars ,small vans etc )would require a specific mention in the granting unless you can show there was an implied common intention at the time of sake when the land was in common ownership.

You say the land was bought as a building plot so at the time of granting the ROW and the sale of land there must of been a common intention by the vendor and purchaser that the ROW could be used to take large lorries down to deliver the building materials . If that was the intention and it’s not expressed somewhere in the conveyance you would probably need to show that the build could not happen without the use of the ROW to deliver all building materials . That would be hard argument to win when you consider your land is bounded by a highway and these day the use of cranes ,some of which are built onto the delivery lorries is a common way to deliver building materials to a building site . Concrete can also be delivered and piped in overhead to its destination . Yes it’s a more expensive way to deliver concrete but its a common way to deliver concrete to hard to access sites and the additional cost would not be a factor if a court were asked to decide on this one.

Your only hope in my opinion is to try and argue that the ROW has no vehicle size and type restrictions, not because it was sold as a building plot but because nothing on the conveyance restricts the type of vehicle. You do also have in your favour the fact that the first user had to construct the ROW and therefore there were no natural restrictions such as gate post etc restricting the size of vehicles that you would get with an already existing ROW but its still an angle that is not a guaranteed win because its purpose is that of a ROW is for a residential property.


Yes as i said earlier i could be wrong, but there is a good chance i am correct with the above. You next and only safe way forward is to speak to a solicitor and gain his or her opinion after supplying all the facts Including what the posters on this forum have said. They however would probably want a barrister with expertise on this subject to give an opinion.

[beardsince1978]

Thanks for that. It is very useful to have a considered argument against so I can formulate an argument to counter that, forewarned is forearmed.

Bring materials in by crane would be very difficult. The verge is over 13m wide so from road to my land is over 13m, plus that route is no longer practical because large trees are there now. These tree have isolated a BT pole which is now only accessible from my land even though it is on the verge (BT replaced it recently is how I know this). The house is a further 15m (28m total) to the front wall, and is 15m deep (43m). Hence a crane to lift the roof truss in would need to stretch 36m. I would agree anything can be done. Lighthouses are built bringing in materials by helicopter. This was not done when the bungalow was built as I was around at the time. I had a 2 year old son, we would certainly have gone to watch a huge crane working to lift in stuff for nana's house. I also know how much it cost to build the house which was not far removed from the original estimate for standard bungalow with normal access for deliveries.

BTW to recap in case I haven't mentioned this, my mother bought this building plot so I have knowledge of what took place. It was a standard build and there were no hiccups over getting materials to site or extra costs for cranes etc.. My mother was living with us as her house was being built (4 miles up the road). We discussed how it was going over dinner most nights. I would remember if she had said about it cost ££ more to pipe in concrete. I looked at piping in concrete on my build and know it doubles the cost of concrete.

So I hope we can take it as proven that the ROW was used for building lorries. As it was used like that then surely the ROW agreement at sale must include building lorries? ROW wording implies no limit on size BTW. As for height, the tree at the entrance would have not existed or been a sapling. The ROW would have been open to the sky.

Also, I would argue that the purpose of this residential ROW was to top up the drive shingle as well as owners cars. Arguably also delivery lorries, removal lorries since it is 56m from front door down ROW to main road.

The vendor was very helpful in overcoming the access problem of not being able to go across the verge so I can't see him not agreeing to a building lorry ROW. The ROW was his (or maybe the solicitor's) suggestion. He was keen that the sale go ahead. I think he wanted a bungalow to be built like his but I think the plot was overpriced, that is priced on area where you could have got 2 houses, more these days. The plot had had planning permission since 1982 but was still available in 1986. My mother wanted to build a bungalow and wanted a big garden so it suited her and I think the vendor was keen to keep her as the buyer.

A non helpful vendor could have said "I'm not giving up any of my land, sort it out with the council". That would be a risk that buyer would walk away but I'm not sure that she could at that time. I presume there would have been some agreement to buy/sell eventually as plans had been submitted when the access issue occurred. These plans were withdrawn and revised ones submitted. My mother had thus paid for plans to be drawn up and for the application so there must have been something in place to guarantee she could buy the land I would have thought. How does it normally work? I assume buyer needs to be sure that planning will be granted before buying the land? Or do you pay for the land but not transfer it until the planning is sure?

[Collaborate]

If you're thinking of taking it further you need to pay for some proper legal advice.

[beardsince1978]

I am consider getting legal advice. I do have legal advice on my home insurance which is some way helpful. I don't have any insurance that would cover this case though.

I have plan A, fight legal case and win, and plan B lose legal case and apply for planning permission for route direct to road. Plan B, planning permission, is strengthen by not having large vehicle access as building regs say a new house would need fire engine access, and this route was granted 30yrs ago (I'd need to remove trees now though so more tricky to get approval). Hence I've got to go down plan A route to start with else planning will just say you already have an entrance, leave the trees alone. Plan B would be cheaper I suspect than a full legal multi-track but I can't go for that before plan A otherwise I would as the costs are then defined. In some respects then it makes sense if I'm going to lose plan A to lose it as cheaply as possible. I'd like to win plan A of course, although if it were certain to get plan A or plan B I might opt for plan B as meaning I wouldn't have to drive past NfH. I've yet to decide on how much I want to spend on legal advice which depends on the track it ends up on. I'll probably look to be litigant-in-person but pay for some legal advice, more if it ends up fast track.

[MacadamB53]

Hi beardsince1978,

you've not disclosed HOW the servient owner is attempting to restrict the use of the ROW (besides not letting you prune the tree - which you could do anyway).

has the entrance or general route been narrowed? can you evidence this?

kind regards, Mac

[arborlad]

You need to ask Admin to merge your threads.

You're not helping yourself and confusing others with multiple threads: http://www.gardenlaw.co.uk/phpBB2/viewt ... =8&t=21014

[arborlad]

You need to ask Admin to merge your threads.

You're not helping yourself and confusing others with multiple threads: http://www.gardenlaw.co.uk/phpBB2/viewt ... =8&t=21014

[arborlad]

You need to ask Admin to merge your threads.

You're not helping yourself and confusing others with multiple threads: http://www.gardenlaw.co.uk/phpBB2/viewt ... =8&t=21014