I think your only option is try and negotiate to buy the track. If this fails, I'm afraid your stuck with the present situation. If I were owner, I wouldn't want to fence the track, as it'll be starting off on the long road to losing ownership. As has been said above if fenced the owner could lose SFP payments too ( although I don't think tracks should be claimed on anyway). Also I wouldn't want to spend money on hardcore / gates / fences / grids either. What benefit would it be to the owner ?
Access to home via farm track
- Thread starter PAAB
- Start date
PAAB
Member
- Location
- South-West
Who said I have sent him a lawyer letter? Again, go back and read the thread, you're nearly as bad as betweenthelines (not quite though)
- Location
- Dumfries and galloway
You have asked and he has said no. Hes quite right to. I neighbour roughly 30 houses and i know what it is like. Dont mind people asking. But when i say no i mean no. Pockets are already full of favours
- Location
- North Wales
But the farmer has every right to use the field for 12 months, maybe you've just been lucky till now.
We don't know who has maintenance of the track or to what standard yet so can't fully comment. But you can't stop the sheep shitting on it and unlikely to get a fence put up so you'll have to live with opening the gate and the sheep on the road.
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
What are you on about? He's asked his lawyer to check the deeds and see what obligation the landowner has, not send any letters to him. Read the thread through properly and you'll see he's been quite reasonable. Too many jumping to conclusions here and embarrassing themselves in the process.
If the landowner is obliged to maintain the track to a standard, then the OP is quite right to hold them to that.
- Location
- North Wales
Just to clarify, I've used the word If to start my sentence. And ended with 'think carefully' .
I'm all for the opening poster to get legal advice as to where they stand legally, it would clear up a lot of confusion but don't be blinded that what they actually want is the track fenced and no gate on the lane to make their lives easier. They brought the property as it is and believed the seller that the farmer was going to add a cattle grid to the lane.
- Location
- Dumfries and galloway
I have seen all the thread. You have not worked with many lawyers when it comes to things like this i guess. They will run with it as long as someone is funding it. This will be why the farmer would want no change to stop it before it started.
toquark
Member
Look, you've come on here asking for advice on an issue. Yes some have sent some barbed comments your way but hey ho...welcome to the internet.
You did say you were about to engage a solicitor, and I would think that if you have as good a relationship with your neighbour as you say you do, that could be a good way to end it. Just talk to him and work out a solution.
PAAB
Member
- Location
- South-West
So, on that point, can people never, ever look at trying to improve things? Do things always have to be as they always were? No room for any improvements?
Times move on and we have simply lived with the current situation for several years (without jumping straight in) and have now offered suggestions on how things could be improved for US but with very little (practically zero) cost or inconvenience to the farmer. If the role was reversed, I would be looking to help my neighbour particularly if they have heloed me out in the past.
I don't get the negativity here from some if the posters but it certainly shows some for what they really are
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
Care to point out where the OP writes that he has sent the landowner a lawyers letter then (as you state in post 160)?
toquark
Member
This thread reminds me of an issue I had when I bought my first house, we had a servitude right to utilise a shared access across a very small section of the neighbour's back garden. When the next door house was sold and the new neighbours moved in I casually mentioned this to them on day over the garden fence which came as a bit of a surprise, obviously their solicitor had missed it during conveyancing. Anyway, after a few years, we put the place on the market and the neighbour came asking for me to remove the ROA from the deed as it had apparently been giving him sleepless nights for the last 6 years (though he never mentioned in the 6 years we were neighbours). I said fine, how much do you want to offer us? He said nothing, so the right stayed.
Moral of the story - go in with your eyes wide open or be prepared to dig deep.
Moral of the story - go in with your eyes wide open or be prepared to dig deep.
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- Location
- Lincolnshire
You are not being unreasonable IMO but I would be very reluctant to proceed very far down the solicitor route.
And yes unfortunately I think you are probably stuck with what’s there. Maybe just keep chipping away on the good will front but ultimately I think the farmer has no obligation to fence it and probably thinks it’s kept tidier if grazed and in that respect he’s right. It would cost resource such as petrol to keep the verges of the fenced off track tidy whereas the sheep do this sustainably. Sheep muck as said is only chewed up grass so I wouldn’t worry too much about it. The surface of the track will sort itself out if you leave it alone. Normally road plantings are black and tarry and would bind if rolled by a heavy roller on a hot day. Don’t go splashing diesel about.
Good luck with it. I can see your point. I can see the farmers point. Life ain’t ideal. Maybe live with it.
- Location
- North Wales
Improve for who? You or the farmer?
All the improvements for you may be at the detriment to the farmers use of his own land. (We don't have any pictures or details to comment fully).
You could be restricting access to stock from running between fields or using single watering points by fencing the track off.
And ultimately I would be suspicious of you wanting to fence the track off so you could claim it as yours in the future. This sort of thing has happened before in the past.
And lastly although there was negativity at the beginning from posters suspicious of your intentions when you insulted them in post #74 it all went down hill.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
We don’t know the full story from both sides but as a general principle I don’t see what’s wrong with somebody trying to improve their situation even if there is nothing in it for the farmer. I’d agree though it doesn’t want to detrimental to the farmer without recompense.
- Location
- North Wales
We need to define 'improve' though. I know of a fenced of track leading to a private house. House owner only has access over the track but cuts grass and hedges along It and has even put an electric gate which restricts access to the farmer. (Tennant)
I’ve been following this thread with a bit more interest than usual because I’m in a slightly similar physical situation to the OP - house is at the end of a large stone track perhaps 1km from the Council road. We own the last 300 metres and the other is owned by a neighbour, we have right of access over the track. The neighbour keeps sheep and cattle on his land which are free to roam over his part of the track and he checks on them a couple of times a day sometimes with a pick up, sometimes tractor if he’s bringing feed or moving stock. The track regularly develops potholes along its entire length and although the deeds do say ’jointly maintained’ or similar there is no specification as to the maintenance standard, and I would suspect 9 times out of 10 in similar cases this lack of specification would be the case. The problem of course is that my neighbour with his tractors and pickup is country born and bred and probably has a very different view as to when, or even if maintenance is required, compared to us incomers with our ordinary cars. The one thing we did decide when we moved from town to country was that we were moving to their world and it was up to us to integrate and accept the ways of the country.
As for the track, in our case I took the view that trying to go the ‘joint maintenance’ route wouldn’t be the best for ensuring peaceful coexistence as it was bound to create friction. Instead I asked if it would be OK to fill in the potholes on on his part as well as ours, he had no objection so I do it 3 or 4 times a year at my expense and doing the work myself. Neighbour has no problem with this and I get complimented on a job well done and it’s helped form a good relationship with the neighbour.
All `I would suggest to the OP is take legal advice if they wish but keep it to themselves unless they really want to go down that route with all the perils it could bring. Back off for a year or so them try the softly approach of asking if he minds you filling in the potholes on your part.
As for the track, in our case I took the view that trying to go the ‘joint maintenance’ route wouldn’t be the best for ensuring peaceful coexistence as it was bound to create friction. Instead I asked if it would be OK to fill in the potholes on on his part as well as ours, he had no objection so I do it 3 or 4 times a year at my expense and doing the work myself. Neighbour has no problem with this and I get complimented on a job well done and it’s helped form a good relationship with the neighbour.
All `I would suggest to the OP is take legal advice if they wish but keep it to themselves unless they really want to go down that route with all the perils it could bring. Back off for a year or so them try the softly approach of asking if he minds you filling in the potholes on your part.
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
Which is exactly what he has done, if you read the thread.
He asked for the landowner to fulfil his obligations and this was refused;
He then asked for permission to do the repairs himself and this was granted and enacted.
He then asked the assembled body of TFF if there were any further ideas to protect said investment and was met with a few good ideas, some issues to be aware of, plus a somewhat predictable tide of abuse from those who jumped to conclusions without reading the whole thread.
He then decided to forego the abuse and indicated instead he would ask his solicitor for clarity of the legal obligations of the landowner and his rights as owner of a right of way.
Is that a fair summary @PAAB ?
PAAB
Member
- Location
- South-West
PAAB
Member
- Location
- South-West
So, once again (this is sooooooo tiring).
1. The improvements are for ME- I've been very open and clear about that!
2. There will be NO restrictions
3. I do NOT want to claim the track as my own.I have no intention of leaving here
4. Suspicious of intention - again, I have been very clear of that and have NO hidden motive or motives
5. Insults - you got me on that one
Goweresque
Member
- Location
- North Wilts
You really haven't been listening have you? Putting a fence up to keep the livestock off the track and allow you access without having to open and close gates is a detriment to the farmer, for all the reasons I have pointed out. He will have very clear and practical additional problems if the track is fenced. So you are demanding he put himself at a detriment for your benefit. Why on earth should he agree to that? Would you? Would you grant him a right of access through your garden for example, if that made his life easier?
And regardless of whether you have any ulterior motives or not, long experience has taught farmers that its not the person you agree some deal with that is usually the problem, its the people who they sell the property to down the line. You could be gone in a few years time, and the new owner might start causing the farmer all manner of grief, claiming the track as their own, demanding the farmer stop using it with large equipment, claiming farm traffic is damaging it etc etc. Far better to cut off any potential legal issues before they even get birthed. Farmers tend to stay in one place for a long time, generations often, and think in long term timescales - not just what might happen this this year or next year, but 10, 20 or 30 years down the line.
If you have no ulterior motives why have you not approached the farmer with the electric fence idea? That would keep sheep off the track (which you say is your biggest bugbear) though of course you'd still need to open and close the gate each time, as I'm sure the farmer would not be happy with just the electric keeping the sheep off the road.