Covenant

[spare]

Hi
At one of my properties I am being asked to pay x amount of money towards repairing the access rd in front of it. No problem there but the owner of it just went ahead and repaired it without quotes etc and is being a bit of an idiot in the way he is demanding it to be paid. Is there any case law on this that anyone knows. There is a covenant in the mortgage papers that says pay towards but it's just the way he went about if etc.

[bandontherun]

It would probably have been better for him to have obtained quotes and circulated them but by the sound of it you are obliged to contribute toward the upkeep of the roadway; subject of course to the cost of the work being "reasonable" whatever that means! I have some experience of private roadways; filling up holes will only provide temporary relief

[spare]

He completely resurfaced the road but didn't tell anyone and then just sent bills and then when people didn't pay he went online and started a small claims against all of the people that didn't pay. But he only put the chasing letters through the letter boxes and didn't make any effort to send them to the landlords addresses instead of the rental properties etc.

[mariner]

If the repairing neighbour was owner/occupier, then letters to the affected propertiea is reasonable IMO. He would not have LL contact adresses, unlike Ts with ASTs. Ts would then just forward letter to LL.
You say he initiated small claims action. What was the outcome? Many should have failed because applications should state the name & address of the liable respondent.

[bandontherun]

quite apart from everything else, the guy is obviously a biscuit short of a packet.

Did he enclose a copy of the bill he paid?

In my (considerable) experience of repairing private roadways sticking some new blacktop over a friable substrate is somewhere between a misconceived mode of repair and a complete waste of time; depending on the condition of the existing roadway below. If the old roadway is broken up you have to repair with concrete first; or if repairing to a more basic standard filling potholes with aggregate mixed with cement.

So you could say that you are perfectly prepared to pay for appropriate repairs carried out but not for something that is unlikely to last and which has been carried out without having been specified by an independent highway engineer. That way, as is perhaps actually the case, you come across as someone reasonable, rather than merely tightfisted!

[fletchj]

You might want to ask this over on the long leasehold board. Whilst the situation is not a lease as such - repair obligations such as this sound closer to leasehold obligations than anything else. Your obligation to pay may rest on the nature of the covenant on the deeds or similar. You may need advice as regardless of the wording there may be obligations laid done e.g. getting quotes etc.

[bhaal]

What exactly does the clause in your mortgage deed say?

[spare]

Very basic clause I think about reasonable costs and sharing them. But like I said I havent got a problem with him doing it, it was just the way he went about it. He sent one letter saying that the works were starting on a certain date and then started chasing people for the money so I just wondered about any case law etc that I could quote.

[bhaal]

Unless you think the costs are unreasonable there is nothing you can do. The law doesn't prevent people from acting like idiots as it sounds like the person organising the works is.

[Lawcruncher]

There is a covenant in the mortgage papers...

Now that would be unusual if by "mortgage papers" you mean "mortgage". I think we need to know exactly what sort of document the covenant is contained in and exactly what the covenant says.

[spare]

Sorry my fault it's the deeds to the house not mortgage papers. :o

[mariner]

Although you may be willing to pay, not supported by your OP, please answer Bhaal's Q #7 What does the clause exactly stipulate? esp regards to areement for repair. Please post exact rel clauses.