Owning your own home

I think @TW and I were less confused by the mechanical elements.
What has happened has shocked me to my very core.

He'll be swimming next.

10k runs, a little Waitrose and Comic Sans pubs signs....have you not bought a place yet ? Also two dance schools with the most non threatening student population ever, I live outside a bus stop when we first moved in show tunes by drunk students was a shock

Also two dance schools with the most non threatening student population ever.

Wait until the Mimes arrive.

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At least it won’t keep me awake

Ohh also the co op by the station is going to be redeveloped with a M&S food going in. The high street on the corner will be a small indi cinema

As long as Covid does not fuck it up

I grew up here, moving back on a more permanent basis than a few weeks would feel too much like admitting defeat.

Having a cinema back would (ignoring Cov) be pleasant - I remember going to the old one on the high street before it became flats.

can you get your property history and photos off Zoopla? Find it slightly creepy that people can access floorplans, value....

Sale prices are available from land registry in any case.

Zoopla, Rightmove, plenty of others. They'll also track the change in asking values, when they went under offer, exchanged (if they can find that out) etc.

Bit of a niche subject and possibly one for @Brommers

Is the house circled in red considered a frontager to the unadopted road / accessway to its southern boundary?

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Yep, that is one layer that would filter random strangers looking at it from their desktop and won't have pictures of the interior of our house or the floorplan (I might be wrong about floorplan...)

Not particularly reassuring is it, specially when they only have previous owners consent...

For the purposes of Part XI of the Highways Act 1980? If so, then yes. Section 293(3) provides that '"fronting” includes adjoining, and “front” is to be construed accordingly', and that looks pretty adjoining. For other purposes, maybe, maybe not.

Once information is in public domain you can't really make it unavailable. Buying a house is enough of a shitshow here that to hide details of any comparable properties would be... unhelpful.

It doesn't bother me that the place I sold last year is available, nor that the place I finally bought last week is still available to see. Tbh as they're both South London houses you could guess the floorplan just by looking at the front of the house.

Many floorplans are available by searching for planning applications too. Good luck getting councils to get rid of that information off their own websites.

Good to know. Thank you.

To further trouble you: If I were to buy that house, would the frontage liability be massive ball ache and money pit?

Also what, if anything would prevent the owner of the land the service road sits on from developing it in to, say, a block of flats? How would usage rights be captured for the unadopted road, if at all?

I also note that the owners have been using the service road as side access to their garden to the point where they've constructed a car port and driven the car in to the garden.

So its a risk / reward thing. Off street parking is helpful and rare around that way, unless you go south of Pitshanger where everything is £200k more expensive. Also the thought of being able to get a digger and building materials in to the rear of the property appeals.

I just asked whether if was possible or not without PITA or a fancy lawyer... I guess the answer is NO... regarding 'personal' information (being available) helping to polish the mega turd that the london property market is... I guess you know what my opinion is... I hope P2P selling and buying take over soon and change the face of the property market (bringing a bit more privacy and fair play with it).

I'm curious as to why the floor plan of your house, and what it looked like before your bought it, is something you would want to keep private?

Not trying to be argumentative, just genuinely curious as this has never occured to me as an issue.

Arguably, it isn't personal information, as at the time it was released, the house belonged to someone else.

@brommers I trust you will be invoicing @Howard

Nothing to hide (not even valuables), just find it truly creepy :)
I also come from countries where that information was only available per consultation on site in planning application offices (usually with a small associated fee). I guess I am just to get used to it :) Tbh I still find the many of the 'local customs' of privacy confusing (i.e: CCTV everywhere, yet less safe... cars allowed to have all windows tinted making simple eye contact with driver impossible...) Not trying to be argumentative either, just simply find it weird and thought it might be easy to remove, without the housing market crashing

Yeah, I see what you mean.

Sadly we have pretty much surrendered any notion of privacy here, apparently in the name of convenience.

I guess after 8 years and despite of liking Marmite I am still finding my feet... btw I am far from a libertarian or flat-earther

To further trouble you: If I were to buy that house, would the frontage liability be massive ball ache and money pit?

Weeeeell, probably not. It's not clear whether it's a public right of way or not. That wouldn't necessarily determine whether or not there's a potential liability under Part XI of the Highways Act. Section 203(2) of the 1980 Act defines a private street as being ‘a street that is not a highway maintainable at the public expense’. The term ‘street’ is defined for these purposes by section 329(1) of the 1980 Act and is defined as having the same meaning as that used in Part III of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 (‘the 1991 Act’). Section 48(1) of the 1991 Act defines ‘Street’ as ‘the whole or any part of any of the following, irrespective of whether it is a thoroughfare ... any highway, road, lane, footway, alley or passage...’ According to the decision in West End Lawn Tennis Club (Pinner) Ltd v Harrow Corpn (1965) 64 LGR 35 you can have a private street over which there is no public right of way. However, unless there is a public right of way and unless it is used by the public (which seems unlikely given it's a cul-de-sac then I'd say the chances of the local authority deciding to carry out works on it are fairly minimal.

Also what, if anything would prevent the owner of the land the service road sits on from developing it in to, say, a block of flats? How would usage rights be captured for the unadopted road, if at all?

From the cobbles at the end of the street/alley/driveway it looks like it's been there for a while. Even if there are no public rights over it, and even if no-one ever granted the owners of adjacent properties the right to use it, I'm pretty sure that the owners of adjacent properties would have acquired rights of way over it through user. If they've been using it for at least 20 years then they have a right to do so either under s. 2 of the Prescription Act 1832 or under the doctrine of lost modern grant. Building on it would be an actionable interference with those rights and so could be prevented by anyone who had the benefit of a right of way over the land.

If there's no express right of way for the benefit of the house, it'd be worth getting the current owners to make stat decs about their usage of the service road, but I'm sure any solicitors would ask them to do that. Any halfway competent one, anyway.

@brommers I trust you will be invoicing @Howard

If I did so then I'd be in breach of my professional obligations, as I'm not allowed to take instructions from non-lawyers (with some limited exceptions for other professions like accountants and surveyors). There's a 'friends and family no liability' exclusion where I can give free advice on a pro bono basis which I'm invoking here, but if I charged then all the rules apply, and I'd be breaking them in many, many ways.