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Absentee freeholder - should my solicitor have told me?

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Chuckbukowski
Chuckbukowski Posts: 3 Newbie
in House buying, renting & selling
Hi all,

My girlfriend and I bought our first flat last year (in a block) and have recently been trying to get in touch with the freeholder.

We found who the freeholder is in our lease and on the Land Registry, but according to Companies House the freeholder is a company that was dissolved in 2015.

Should this have been picked up by our solicitor?

Do we have any legal rights here?

Another leaseholder in our block said another company now owns the freehold. I've never received correspondence about the original freeholders selling the freehold to another company, or any reference to it through our solicitor. Also, even if there is another company that owns our freehold, they've not been in touch and are not on the Land Registry.

It's all pretty murky and it feels like it should have been picked up by our solicitor.

Any ideas on what to do next?

Thanks.

Comments

  • RedFraggle
    RedFraggle Posts: 1,309 Forumite
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    I would assume they would have checked there was a registered freeholder and found there was one. If there hadn't been a freeholder then I don't think you'd have got your mortgage and wouldn't have the flat.
    What do you mean by your question with regard to legal rights? Rights to what? In cases of absenteeism leaseholders can go to court to transfer the freehold.
    Officially in a clique of idiots
  • eddddy
    eddddy Posts: 16,449 Forumite
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    Chuckbukowski wrote: »
    It's all pretty murky and it feels like it should have been picked up by our solicitor.

    You should have received a 'freeholder management pack' via your solicitor when you bought the property.

    That should have been prepared by the freeholder and show their name and address.

    Did you get this?
    Chuckbukowski wrote: »
    We found who the freeholder is in our lease and on the Land Registry, but according to Companies House the freeholder is a company that was dissolved in 2015

    The freeholder on the lease is irrelevant (that's just historic information). But if you've recently done an LR search, that should be correct.
  • Tom99
    Tom99 Posts: 5,371 Forumite
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    What is the freeholder responsible for under your lease?
  • Chuckbukowski
    Chuckbukowski Posts: 3 Newbie
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    Thanks for the replies so far.

    We never got a freehold management pack. I've now found out that the freeholder went into insolvency in 2015. That company had a mortgagee which retains some interests or ownership of the freehold, but it's not a freeholder per se. I don't exactly understand the law around this but it's not charging ground rent or service charges or doing any maintenance of the property. A Right To Manage company has been set up to take care of that.

    Surely these are things a solicitor should have picked up? The Land Registry search has the old insolvent company as freeholder so it's definitely out of date.

    Thanks
  • ThePants999
    ThePants999 Posts: 1,748 Forumite
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    Yes, the solicitor should have picked up on this. Without a management information pack, they wouldn't have had any confirmation that the previous leaseholder was up to date with ground rent and service charges, which could have led to you inheriting their old liability. Poor show IMO.
  • TBagpuss
    TBagpuss Posts: 11,204 Forumite
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    edited 19 October 2017 at 3:15PM
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    Normally the solicitor would check that he LR and the documents provided by the seller were consistent. They would not routinely do a search at companies house for the freeholder.

    They would also check with the seller whether they have proof that any services charges et were up to date, so that provision could made made to ensure that you didn't take on liability for any arrears.

    So the issue could be what was provided by the seller,and was there anything in that (or missing from that) which ought to have led to the solicitor making further enquiries.Does the lease make provision for ground rent or service charges?
    Were the sellers paying ground rent?


    Have you spoken to your solicitor yet to ask them about these points? that would be the first port of call.
    All posts are my personal opinion, not formal advice Always get proper, professional advice (particularly about anything legal!)
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