Roads and Paths

Adopted and unadopted roads
Where a road is maintained by the local authority, it is said to be "adopted". However, that doesn't necessarily mean that the local authority is the owner of the land over which the road passes. Ownership is a matter of historical record. The local council will only be the owner of the land if they have expressly purchased the relevant land area (or in some other way, lawfully acquired it). Ownership of the underlying land is quite separate from the question of who maintains the road surface.

Where the road is "unadopted", it may be part of a private estate (and therefore, most usually, the property of the estate owners) or - as is often the case - the ownership may have been forgotten over the years.

Sometimes, it is possible to trace the legal sale and purchase (or other form of conveyance) since the first creation of the road. Sometimes, the road or pathway is so old that other principles of law have to be applied.

Problems where ownership is uncertain
Problems can arise where the true ownership of a road (or a pathway) is uncertain.

Neighbours sometimes start to encroach on the roadway, or make claims that they have special rights over it. Often, it is only the legal owner who can object to this, even though other neighbours may be inconvenienced. If there is no known legal owner, it is difficult to protect against encroachment.

Similarly, in the absence of an effective owner, there can be instances of public parking, obstruction, dumping, and other anti-social behaviour. All of this can adversely affect the residents - but they may not have the same rights as a legal land owner to defend against such behaviour.

Solving the Problems
Some roads were created fairly recently. Others can date back over hundreds of years. At our own expense, we use a network of specialist researchers and licenced conveyancers to research - as far as we can - the full history of the relevant land.

If we can identify the historical owners, we can usually trace the line of succession, to find the present legal owner. If there really is no evidence of historical legal ownership, there are legal processes that can be used in order to return the land to Crown control, or to apply for ownership to pass to those people directly affected by the issue.

Once ownership is re-established, and you know who owns the land or the roadway, you are in a much better position to enforce or protect your rights - or (if you want to) apply to acquire the land yourself.

Our fees and charges
There are no costs or fees to pay for our basic research work. Where we discover a legal owner who is unaware of their property entitlement, we expect to negotiate a fee with that owner based on the value of the property we discover for them. The fee is normally only payable as and when the Land Registry accepts and registers their title.

Once ownership is established, we can also earn fees for management services offered to the legal owners of roadways and paths, if that is of interest to the owners.

Further information
For further information, please contact us here.