What is Right of Way?

Full Definition

A right of way is a type of easement that gives someone the legal right to pass over land belonging to someone else, most commonly to reach their own property from a public road, or to cross private land as part of a wider public footpath, bridleway or byway network. Private rights of way typically arise where a property has no direct road frontage of its own, so access is only possible by crossing a shared driveway, track or another owner's garden, and the right is usually recorded in the title deeds of both the property benefiting from the access (the dominant land) and the property being crossed (the servient land), specifying the route, its width, and whether it can be used on foot, by vehicle, or both. Public rights of way, by contrast, are routes -- footpaths, bridleways, restricted byways and byways open to all traffic -- that any member of the public can use regardless of who owns the underlying land, and in England and Wales these are recorded on a local authority's definitive map and statement, which is the legal record of where public rights of way exist; a route not shown on the definitive map may still be a public right of way if it can be proved through historical use or evidence, though disputes about this can be complex and slow to resolve. Landowners over whose land a private right of way passes cannot normally obstruct it, and while they may be able to impose reasonable conditions (such as keeping a shared gate closed), they generally cannot charge a toll or fee for its use unless this was specifically agreed when the right was created; conversely, the owner of the right of way is usually responsible for using it reasonably and, depending on the terms, may share responsibility for maintaining the surface of a shared track. Disputes over rights of way -- for example, a servient landowner blocking access, or uncertainty over the exact route or width of an informal track used for many years -- are a common source of neighbour and conveyancing disputes, and anyone buying a property that relies on a right of way for access should check the title carefully and consider indemnity insurance if the right is unclear or undocumented.

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