Do I own this land?

[mrs. sparkle]

I just purchased an end of terrace property

It has side access, with two doors at the end of the passage (one for the neighbour and one for me) which grants access to each owners respective garden

I assumed that this side access was shared however, looking at the Land Registry title document it says the following


'The land has the benefit of a right of way over the passageway at the side not included in the title.'

The above is only present in my title document and not the neighbours. Does this mean that the passageway belongs to me?

If not, what is the significance of this?

[AndrewDod]

That seems to say you do not own it. You can pass through it. Probably your neighbour "owns" it.

[pilman]

not included in the title

That means exactly what it says. You do not own this access path but you can use it whoever it belongs to.

In many cases a builder set out these access paths to allow access to the back gardens of houses when coal deliveries were very important.

After selling of the houses and pocketing the profits often these passageways and access paths were then forgotten about and not passed on when an estate was dealt with after a death. That is why many of those alleyways remain unregistered, because there has been no dealing in the land since registration became compulsory and is unlikely to ever be registered if no beneficiaries are known about.

[nukecad]

'The land has the benefit of a right of way over the passageway at the side not included in the title.'

The above is only present in my title document and not the neighbours. Does this mean that the passageway belongs to me?

If not, what is the significance of this?

As you don't both have that clause then it most likely means that the passageway belongs to your neighbour.

In which case your neighbour doesn't need a right of way granting across their own land.

Although, as pilman says, it could belong to neither of you, and no RoW is shown on the neighbours docs because of past conveyancing slips.

Whichever way - Having a granted RoW shows that it is not your land. If it was your land then you wouldn't need a RoW.

[Tipper]

If it's an ex-local authority house then it may still belongs to the local authority as properties were sold off at different times under the right to buy legislation so access had to be preserved by the authority for the benefit of their remaining tenants.

[Kape65]

Does this property have a flying freehold above the passageway?