Living beside a public laneway

Hello,

we live beside a lane way which the Council have taken in charge, which means (at least, perhaps others..) they are responsible to keep the lane way clean and tidy.

Thanks to the fact that we have builders now on site doing a SunRoom for us, they have pointed out the dangerous state of the garden wall between our back garden and the lane way. They aren't touting for business, but they do have a valid point that if it wouldn't be stretching it too much for someone jumping on the wall to cause parts of it to fall.

Am I responsible for the upkeep of the wall, or is a Council responsibility ?

If its mine - I'm considering talking to my friendly Insurance Broker and pointing out that if they were to pay X to get the wall redone, it would be much cheaper than any likely claim I might make in the future. I appreciate i would have to get some collaborating evidence in a Formal Report of some sort.

Best wishes
r

Even though the Council maintains the lane, that does not necessarily mean that they own it. Your back wall is almost certainly your responsibility.

Your plan to "blackmail" the insurance company to pay for the repairs is most likely doomed to failure also. If you are genuinely concerned that the wall will fall on someone, it might behoove you to have it repaired as soon as possible. In the meantime I'd make sure you have enough insurance cover to protect yourself against a claimant if the wall DOES fall on someone.

Whether you own the wall or not depends on whether it is situate on your land. Only an engineer with your original land registry map can tell you this, and even at that, it may be difficult to tell.
In relation to the up keep, it seems to me that the fact that you are on notice that the wall is in a dangerous condition and you have done nothing about it ,could void your insurance cover. Be very careful.

I'd imagine that the purpose of building a wall is to protect ones property so you could go on the basis that it's your back wall and that if the builder is still on site you should ask the foreman for his opinion.