Retaining Wall on highway

Hi hoping for some general advice, I live in a property on a hill, 15 years old. There is a retaining historic wall that holds up the land which my house eventually sits on. The wall is at least 200 years old, it is not accessible from my side without risk of falling into the highway, and not accessible from roadside as there is no path, its straight onto tarmac. I have always assumed it belonged to the highways. It has partially collapsed, the council are saying its my responsibility to maintain this wall, and I am now expected to pay for repairs, which will be huge. Its currently on traffic management. I already have my insurance looking into it and luckily I opted for the legal cover as clearly I will need it. 

I have been on land registry to obtain deeds (I didn't have a copy) There are no covenants on the Title Register or plan.  I have 3 questions

1 - Whilst there are no covenants listed, is it possible there is but they are not listed on  Land Reg, as I am assuming that the deeds when on paper are scanned onto the database. Who decides what goes on, do they have a checklist, and is it possible that a covenant can be missed?

2 - If a retaining wall runs along the highway ( a busy one at that) and there is no path or land, just the tarmac for road, would it be normal to expect a home owner to maintain it.

3 - if there is definitely no covenants, what would be the process of determining responsibility, if it was between neighbours I would guess you work it out between yourselves, but local authorities/Highways, does anyone have any experience of this.

Thanks in advance for any comments

Hi Michaela - when land/property is registered the first application provides the deeds/documents that confirm ownership and how the land/property has been conveyed over the years. If those deeds/documents then contain covenants, rights, provisions and more then the appropriate entries would be made on the newly created register. That is our role to convert the old deeds/documents into a register and then return the deeds/documents to the applicant.
Thereafter the owner and any other interested party would rely on the registered information and not the old deeds/documents as we then guarantee the title including ownership and registered covenants etc
The issue and Qs raised are really ones for your legal adviser to answer - we are a registration authority only but I have tried to offer some general assistance in my reply
So in answer to your points as raised
1. No unless they were included in deeds/documents not supplied on first registration or since
2 and 3. We would not know what 'normal' looks like in that scenario. We register the general boundaries and for example covenants, agreements or provisions that relate to same as applied for and appropriate. If there is an issue re a boundary re who is responsible for it or who owns it then that would generally be a matter for the adjoining landowners to then discuss and agree upon.
I should stress that there is a legal presumption that land/property owners can own land up to the middle of the highway/road. When the road is adopted by the local authority they adopt the top few inches and the legal ownership is unchanged. The registered title will very rarely be mapped to the middle of the road though - see PG 40 sup 3

The forum, whilst public, is very much a Q & A between customers and HMLR. It would be very rare for others to also post on threads in the way they might on other online forums.
If you are looking for others to share their own understanding/experiences I would recommend using public forums such as Garden Law for example where such matters are often aired, shared and discussed