Shared access to property

[Dubya]

Apologies if this is the wrong forum, please advise if so.
30 years ago my parents bought a house at the bottom of a 200 yard bumpy track. The farmer at the top kept ownership of the track and my parents enjoy unfettered right of way and the title stipulates that both properties (his and my parents) have a shared responsibility for maintenance. In the past few years my parents property has suffered from the volume of water that comes down in the winter. Essentially the track turns into two small streams and by the time they reach my parents property they have a destructive force that creates gullys almost a foot deep where their yard meets the track. The water also washes across their property damaging their own track down to a field they own and also making it's way into an old stone building used to store wood, tools etc, flooding the floor and making it very muddy. My dad passed away four years ago and I moved in with mum. I spent some money sorting out her yard, parking etc and this has also been damaged. My parents moved here to retire and they are very timid souls. When mum told me that they had allowed the farmer to use their land free of charge for 25 years (grazing his beef cattle and taking cuts of silage) I said it was high time that he put some drainage on the track as he owns it. We have now had four or five conversations with him but it's becoming clear that he is not going to do anything to fix the drainage. Does anyone have any advice please. Many thanks.

 

[fisicx]

Do you have the original documents setting out the rights and responsibilities?

If so, take them to a solicitor or mediator and pay to get everything sorted.

 

[eteb3]

Yeah, only a land lawyer could sort this out.

The grass is going to be an entirely separate issue from the track, I’m afraid, unless you can use it as a negotiating lever.

In all likelihood by now the farmer has rights to the profits a prendre in the grazed land. You’d have to show he grazed there only by permission of your parents and not as of right, which over such a long period sounds very difficult.

Documents are the starting point, but land law is also a matter of the facts on the ground

 

[WaveJumper]

The devil here is really going to be in the detail and what was documented gather it all up and as previously advised if negotiations fail get some legal advice

 

[HFE Signs]

Given the history I'd approach this a bit different initially - I'd get advice on the best way to solve the problem, how the water can be diverted and the cost to implement it, once you have this information you have something to work with and maybe you could come to some arrangement without running up unnecessary legal costs, keep us posted

 

[Mark T Jones]

Reflecting the above - you are going into a very muddy (pun noted) area of law, which could get extremely messy, protracted & expensive if not handled well.

I know you've tried, but one-to-one communication is the best way here (or possibly via a mediator if things become too fraught).

First though, separate & isolate individual issues - approach one at a time to see if there are individual sticking points or just a general reluctance to change.