Information for buyers and solicitors

If you are buying a property on the Sea Lane Estate, or acting for someone who is, this page tells you what you need to know and how to get the rest.

What your client is buying into

Middleton on Sea Association has owned and maintained the private roads, verges, twittens, roundabouts and land drains of this estate since 1937. The Greensward along the sea front is also ours, and is a Site of Nature Conservation Importance. The wider area is designated an Area of Special Character by Arun District Council.

Practically, that means three things for a purchaser:

1. The roads are not adopted. No council resurfaces them. The Association does, funded by an annual estate charge on each property, made up of a fixed element common to the whole estate and a road element that varies by road group.
2. Covenants apply. Restrictive covenants form part of the legal deeds of most properties here. They should be checked against the individual title.
3. There are charges for building works. If a new owner intends significant construction, heavy vehicles do measurable damage to the estate roads, and a building works charge applies, on a scale set by the scope of the work. It applies whether or not the owner is a MOSA member. Current figures are provided to buyers through their solicitor.

Conveyancing enquiries

Conveyancing and management enquiries are handled by the Association’s managing agents, not by the Association.

They will provide the information a purchaser’s solicitor needs about the estate, the Association and the charges standing against a property. Their fee is set by them, so please ask them for it.

Contact details are on the contact page.

Estate agents

You are welcome to describe the estate and the Association in your particulars, and we would rather you described it accurately than guessed. If you want to check a detail, ask us.

Please note that estate agents’ boards are not permitted on the estate. This catches out agents new to the area regularly, and it is not personal.

What we cannot answer

We hold information about the estate, the Association and its charges. We do not hold information about individual properties beyond that: title, boundaries, building control history and planning permissions all sit with the owner, Arun District Council or the Land Registry.

For invoicing and payment history, the managing agents handle estate management day to day. See who handles what.

And if you are the one buying

Everything above is written for solicitors, so it is necessarily a list of obligations. It seems worth saying what those obligations actually buy.

The grass verges, the absence of kerbs and the near-absence of street lighting are not accidents of ownership. Captain Coldicott laid the estate out that way in the 1920s, wanting a village rather than a development, and it has been kept that way deliberately ever since: by the Village Design Statement, by the Area of Special Character designation, and by residents who cut their own verges. The covenants are why the house next door will still be a house in twenty years.

What being unadopted changes is who pays. No council resurfaces these roads or clears their drains, so the estate charge does, and that is the bargain a purchaser is buying into.

And the Association is not a management company. It is your neighbours: the people who mow the Greensward, keep the twittens clear, organise the beach clean and put on the barbecue in August.

If you do move in, your Road Representative will call round with a welcome pack and explain how things work on your road. We would be very glad to have you.

You may also enjoy the words we use, which explains what a twitten is before somebody assumes you already know.