Access must be secured by a right that passes to you as well, not by an oral understanding between the seller and the neighbour. The safest arrangement is a co-ownership share in the access road, or an easement of way and passage attached to ownership of the house and registered in the Land Register. If there is none, create it before the purchase or together with it, and make payment of the price conditional on it.
With older houses on the edge of a village, in allotment areas or behind terraced development, the gate is often reached along a narrow road belonging to the neighbour, or across a plot once owned by “everyone in the street”. The seller walked there for years without difficulty because he knew the neighbour. His good relations with the neighbour, however, do not pass to the buyer. If access does not rest on a registered right, the new owner of the neighbouring land may block the road and you will be left with a house you cannot lawfully reach.
How to find out how the house is actually reached
On the cadastral map, look at which plot separates the house from the public road and obtain a title sheet for that plot too, not only for the plots you are buying. You will learn who owns the road and whether an easement is registered over it. Part C of the title sheet contains easements, including their content, the identification of the beneficiary and the entry of the easement in the beneficiary’s title sheet (Section 8(1)(b) of the Land Register Act). If no such easement appears in Part C of the title sheet for the road and the road belongs to someone else, you have no registered access.
Three ways to secure access
The first is a co-ownership share in the access road. If the seller holds one, it belongs in the purchase agreement as a separately identified property; otherwise it stays with him.
The second is an easement of way and passage in favour of the owner of the house. What matters is that it is attached to ownership of the property rather than to the person of the seller; we explain the difference in the question on an easement in rem or in personam. Only such an easement travels on with the house:
Easements attached to ownership of immovable property pass with ownership of the thing to the acquirer.
— Section 151n(2) of the Civil Code (unofficial English translation)
The easement is created by agreement of the owner of the burdened land, and the right arises only upon registration in the Land Register (Section 151o(1) and (2)); that owner’s signature must be officially certified (Section 42(3) of the Land Register Act). Where the seller is keeping the neighbouring plot that is used for access, the easement is best created directly in the purchase agreement, so that the house and the right of way pass in a single set of proceedings. If the easement is to burden only part of a plot, it must be delimited by a survey plan, as we explain in the question on delimiting an easement. For land with several owners, see the question on who signs an easement where land is co-owned.
The third is a public road, that is, direct access from land owned by the municipality or the State and serving as a carriageway. Even then it is worth checking on the map that no narrow strip of someone else’s plot lies between your land and the road.
Where access is missing and the neighbour will not co-operate
The law gives the owner of a structure a last resort, though it cannot be relied on when buying:
Where the owner of a structure is not also the owner of the adjoining land and the owner’s access to the structure cannot be secured otherwise, the court may, on an application by the owner of the structure, create an easement in favour of the owner of the structure consisting in a right of way across the adjoining land.
— Section 151o(3) of the Civil Code (unofficial English translation)
The court may so decide only where access cannot be secured in another way, and court proceedings take time. When the court will create a right of way and when it will not is examined in the article on the right of passage across another’s land. A right of way may also be acquired by prescription where a lawful possessor has exercised it continuously for ten years (Section 151o(1) in conjunction with Section 134(1)), but that too must be proved in court if contested.
What to do before signing
If access is not registered, agree with the seller that he will secure it before the transfer, or that an easement agreement with the neighbour will form part of the transaction. Tie the purchase price to registration of the easement, for example through escrow, so that you do not pay before the right of way actually exists. We examine access and address it in the purchase agreement for a house, and we prepare the easement itself so that the Land Register will register it and so that it passes to subsequent owners of the house as well.
This answer provides general information on the law as at 12 September 2026. It does not constitute legal services or replace an assessment of an individual case. The details of your situation may differ. Book a consultation to discuss them.
