Share of freehold

sweetgran

Would like advice on what to do on a missing freehold sharer, who needs to sign over my share of freehold to a new buyer for my flat. The freeholder can not be contacted, is there any other way of sorting this out?

Richard_Webster

I assume, but please confirm,that the freehold belongs to individuals (rather than a company) and it is one of these individuals who has disappeared.

If the freehold is held by individuals is there any deed of trust regulate how the freehold is held? If so there may be some procedure set out in it which enables you to dispense with the this signature.

Some possible ways forward are:

1. Try to persuade the Land Registry that there was an implied trust of the land and they should recognise the appointment of new trustee(s) and dispense with his signature - unlikely I think.

2. Apply to the court for an order forcing the missing freeholder to sign - with the court appointing someone to sign in his stead if he doesn't - no guarantee of success and time consuming and expensive.

3. If you weren't advised by your solicitor when you purchased that this could happen - standard advice I give when anyone buys a shared freehold literally held by individuals - you might be able to sue the solicitor for the resulting loss if you end up trying to unload the flat at a loss at an auction to someone doesn't bother to look critically at the legal pack.

These literally owned shared freeholds are disasters waiting to happen but there are so many of them particularly in London that it will be difficult to do much about them. The problem is that the reality of the problem that has occurred here only really becomes apparent when it happens. Before it happens nobody wants to spend the money on a deed of trust or transferring the freehold to a jointly owned company to avoid many of these problems.

If mortgage lenders took a tougher line and insisted that there had to be in place a satisfactory legal means of ensuring that the freehold could be transferred so that it was held from time to time by the lesses of the flats then more shared freeholders would have to get together to sort the matter out if they wanted to sell their flats, but even then there could be one person who would obstinately refuse to sign the documents to provide the remedy.

PS My website, which I am not allowed to advertise here has a whole section on these issues - but I'm afraid I can't offer solutions to this kind of problem, only to advise those buying of the potential issues so they go in with their eyes open.