With 140,000 miles of footpaths in England and Wales, the chance of having one running past or through your property’s boundaries is not as small as you might think. Most people use and support footpaths: they are an ancient right and a highly valued part of every community. But footpaths and rights of way of all kinds are also something that property owners – and potential owners – worry about.

Some people simply don’t like the thought of people walking past their house. They value their privacy. Others specifically fear crime or anti-social behaviour. And footpaths, like any through route, can attract nuisances. Dog-walkers are not always responsible about dog waste, for instance, or may not keep their dogs under control. If the footpath is a good route between housing and a pub or park, it could result in noise, litter and casual vandalism. If it’s a popular walking route, it could get a lot of weekend foot-traffic. If it’s a bridleway or restricted byway, it could attract horse-riders and cyclists. Men on bikes do tend to shout to each other, and be conscious of the risk of the bridleway or byway being abused by law-breaking off-road motorcyclists, or worse.

Judging the scale of the problem is not easy. Walking a particular route is the place to start, alongside studying a map – but a map won’t tell you how many people use the path. In summer, footfall levels can be gauged from the vegetation, and how much it encroaches; in winter, you want to see how muddy the path gets. Look too at where the footpath leads and comes from, and who might use it as a result. Check local crime rates online, and how often the house has been bought and sold, comparing this to other similar properties nearby. High fences and security cameras could be another indication of issues, although it could also just indicate a previous owner’s anxiety.

Then there are unknown unknowns – the sort of things conveyancing solicitors will rightly worry about. Would the right of way limit or complicate any future development of the land? What if you (or a future owner) were to want to build an annexe or new home in the garden, for instance? Are there any maintenance responsibilities, and associated costs?  

Costs are worth considering carefully. If a footpath crosses your property, upkeep of the surface is the responsibility of the local authority but the landowner does have other responsibilities – chiefly to keep it safe for use by clearing any vegetation and fallen trees. (The rule, in a nutshell, is that if the obstruction comes from below, the local Highway Authority has to deal with it; if it comes from the side, the landowner does.) So even if your garden only borders a footpath, you still have to make sure your plants and trees do not obstruct it. You might also need or want landowner’s public liability insurance; you would need expert advice from a broker or lawyer in order to establish this.

Where the right of way falls within your land, the fencing and gates are also your responsibility – you will have to repair them if they break. And they will break, in time! Wood rots, people climb or slam gates, fences get blown down… Landowners are not allowed to put up gates if it would put anyone off using the right of way. (So don’t think you could necessarily put up a gate if you wanted to keep a dog or young children safe, for instance.) Landowners are also not allowed to divert paths, or not without formal consent from the local authority. Another definite no is the putting up of off-putting signage – scary signs warning of electrical danger or bulls, for instance – unless the danger is real.

You might think you could redirect the footpath. Authorities are more open to this than they once were, but it is still difficult to do, unless you can provide a viable alternative route that protects your privacy while still protecting the way-users’ rights. Even if you can arrange all that, you would still need to negotiate a reasonably complex legal process with uncertain outcomes. Don’t expect to be able to do what you want.

The issue of open Access Land is more of a specialist one, and likely only to affect farms and larger estates, especially those bordering or containing common land, moorland or other open country, and possibly coastal areas. In these cases specialist legal help is strongly advised, and will be the norm in any case.

All of this potentially affects the saleable value of any house impacted by a right of way, although the scale of the impact very much depends on particular case. It also potentially affects the enthusiasm of potential mortgage lenders. In some cases, where a right of way crosses the property, for instance, a potential buyer might have a reduced choice of lenders, or need to go through a specialist broker, or be required to have a higher deposit.

To find out exactly where footpaths run, every County Council (or Unitary Authority, if that’s what you have) keeps a Definitive Map, accessible online. (This map also shows when a footpath also has its width specified, which is sometimes the case.) You can check an Ordnance Survey map, of course, but be aware that footpaths can change; if one can be proved to have existed in the past, for instance, it can still be added to the Definitive Map. With that in mind, a very cautious buyer might even want to check old maps in a library or using the Ordnance Survey’s historical map archives – also available online.

It is easy to become anxious about footpaths and other rights of way, and this will be the stock response of some solicitors and lenders. But don’t forget the joy of having a footpath at your door: think of all the places it can take you, and all the people you might meet. Footpaths can be a headache for property owners, but few of us would want to live in a country without them.

If you are looking for a Surveyor, you may find some of these links useful: