Freeholder

boltonian

In my sale, the latest problem is that my flat is one of four that make up the freehold. I need to get the other 3 owners to sign to agree to transfer the name of the freehold to the person buying my flat.

Sadly, one of these people has been declared bankrupt and can't be traced. There is a trustee (liquidating) his assets.

How does this affect me? Am I stuck until this is all sorted?

Richard_Webster

It is possible, but unlikely, that there is a trust deed that regulates how the freehold is to be held, and how new trustees can be appointed. it might say that a trustee becoming bankrupt would be deemed no longer to be acting and then the others could sign over the freehold.

Were you warned about this kind of potential problem when you bought the flat?

However, my experience is that this point is usually forgotten when freeholds of buildings such as this are bought. People want to do it in the cheapest way and don't think about this sort of thing happening. Better usually to have had the freehold owned by a jointly owned company whose name doesn't change when the flats change hands.

Your solicitors may be able to persuade the trustee in bankruptcy to join in the transfer but this could take some time. He might suspect it is worth something and may want to try to extract his "pound of flesh" for doing this.

boltonian

Hi

When I bought the flat 7 years ago, I had no idea what a leasehold/freehold was (my own fault I guess).

It is only now that I came to sell it that I realised that 4 flat owers all share the freehold of the property.

I think the solicitor is speaking to the trustee, but this probably means any hope of making the stamp duty deadline are now gone

Thanks for helping me to clarify the situation