freehold house, leasehold garage

secla

we are selling our house and the solicitor has said she needs the building insurance for our garage, the house itself is freehold but the garage is leasehold as its in a block of 4 garages that has a flat above it. its a 999 year lease the service charge is "a peppercorn per year" which i assume is just a way of saying the is no service charge.
i looked through out lease and it says that the company holding the lease can charge us 1/8 of the price of the insurance cost but we have never been asked for this in the 7 years we have lived there. am i right in thinking the owner of the flat most likely pays the whole price of the insurance as the garages are essentially holding up the flat ? im planning in phoning them up tommorow but i dont really fancy them telling me ive got a load of backed up charges i should have been paying.

timmyt

secla wrote: »

we are selling our house and the solicitor has said she needs the building insurance for our garage, the house itself is freehold but the garage is leasehold as its in a block of 4 garages that has a flat above it. its a 999 year lease the service charge is "a peppercorn per year" which i assume is just a way of saying the is no service charge.
i looked through out lease and it says that the company holding the lease can charge us 1/8 of the price of the insurance cost but we have never been asked for this in the 7 years we have lived there. am i right in thinking the owner of the flat most likely pays the whole price of the insurance as the garages are essentially holding up the flat ? im planning in phoning them up tommorow but i dont really fancy them telling me ive got a load of backed up charges i should have been paying.

your lawyer is dead right. you have to ask and there could be 6 (max for a money claim I understand) years of back claimed charges to pay...your buyer will ask for an allowance so they can deduct this if you do not pay, but hardly a lot of money 6 x1/8th - only buildings insurance not contents.

check the lease to see what the landlord should also have been doing and failing at and do a trade off. main thing is to make sure your garage is insured as if that goes up in flames, you (the buyer) are out of pocket far more than 6/8th of an insurance policy

secla

i assumed my garage was insured through my home buildings insurance. it says includes garages and outbuildings !
im quite suprised that the solicitor never mentioned this when we bought the house (it was a new build) and why the leaseholder wouldnt have contacted me to let me know there was a charge to pay,

secla

checked out on the land registery today and it seems the owner of the flat above the garages actually holds the freehold. so it seems i just have to pop round to his and ask for a copy of his building insurance ! should he have some kind of special insurance to insure the leasehold garages or will it just be a regular building insurance for his flat ?