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Freehold and Leasehold Problem!!! HELP!!!

alltoohuman
Posts: 2 Newbie
Hello, I need you good people's advice!
I am in the process of buying a house but there is a problem. The vendor owns the freehold AND the leasehold. The freehold is absolute, but the leasehold is just good. It is a fairly old property and there is a gap in the lease from 1905 to 1927, which means that it may be impossible to merge the two titles.
The vendors are taking out indemnity insurance to cover any problems that may arise. If our mortgage company does not accept this then the two titles will have to be merged before we can complete.
I cannot believe that the titles could not be merged as this would make the house un-sellable!
Has anyone come across this before?
Is it worth going ahead if the indemnity insurance will cover it, all be it with the possibility of going through this all again when we come to sell?
PLEASE HELP!!!!!!
I am in the process of buying a house but there is a problem. The vendor owns the freehold AND the leasehold. The freehold is absolute, but the leasehold is just good. It is a fairly old property and there is a gap in the lease from 1905 to 1927, which means that it may be impossible to merge the two titles.
The vendors are taking out indemnity insurance to cover any problems that may arise. If our mortgage company does not accept this then the two titles will have to be merged before we can complete.
I cannot believe that the titles could not be merged as this would make the house un-sellable!
Has anyone come across this before?
Is it worth going ahead if the indemnity insurance will cover it, all be it with the possibility of going through this all again when we come to sell?
PLEASE HELP!!!!!!
0
Comments
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There are issues about good leasehold titles but frankly here the most important thing is that you own the freehold.
Good Leasehold titles are normally given on first registration where the LR is satisfied that there was a lease granted whenever and the lease has been assigned/transferred down to the present owner over the years, but where there is no evidence that the person who granted the lease actually owned the freehold. Therefore in theory the "real" freeholder could appear and claim the lease shouldn't have been granted. If the lease is 80-100 years old this is so unlikely that pre 1999 it was only a few lenders who made a fuss about the point.
When the CML Handbook came out the rules were tightened so that normally the title has to be upgraded or insurance obtained unless the solicitor is satisfied that the title is generally acceptable in his area. In my area (Southampton/Eastleigh) we have a lot of these but it is not something that is not that common in Hampshire generally so I would find a Portsmouth solicitor struggling with it, but up north in places like Sheffield there are thousands of them and solicitors seem to get less stressed about them.
I'm not clear what is meant by "a gap in the lease..." Could OP explain further?
Is your leasehold title only an underlease (perhaps for 998 years) and there could be an intermediate headlease giving a right to repossess the property for a year in about 900 years time and collect the ground rent from you in the meantime and nobody can find the person who owns this intermediate headlease? I've got one like that the moment and the LR are going to take a view about it and simply upgrade my client's underleasehold title to absolute anyway.
Also if that is the case the intermediate lessee could demand ground rent etc from you but then you could demand it from him as freeholder - so it is all pretty theoretical and in practice I would expect indemnity insurance to deal with it for the future.RICHARD WEBSTER
As a retired conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful assuming any properties concerned are in England/Wales but I accept no liability for it.0 -
Thanks Richard, when I say 'gap in the lease' it is actually two leases, with a gap in the dates.
I would like to merge the two leases with the freehold either before or after buying the property. I have been told that I will need to find the missing chunk between the leases before this can be done.
If it can't be found, is there some way that it can be overwritten so I can marry it to the freehold?0
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