Share of Freehold question

firsttimebuyer2011

First timer here, so pls be kind.

A question for all you legal eagles.

Have viewed a first floor maisonette that I like, however...

This maisonette is share of freehold. Oddly (?), the ground floor flat is leasehold. So I'm presuming the other share of freeholder lives off-site, goodness knows where, and might be in Timbuktu.

Is that a dealbreaker?

Also, the garden is shared, whereas I would need it to be formally split in two and marked by a fence (as most maisonettes are on that road), before I take ownership.

Given the above, is that going to be possible, since downstairs aren't share of freeholders?

Hope that all makes sense.

Cheers in advance

jamesd

Are you sure it's not a shared freehold and each property leasehold? That's a common arrangement with a house converted into a paid of flats.

You may not be able to get the other freeholder and the leaseholder to agree to splitting. It's a loss of use of part of the garden for them and may decrease the value of their property. Up to you to find out what they want you to pay and whether they are willing to do it at all.

Doozergirl

Even with share of freehold, there are leases. The flats remain leasehold, the freehold is owned separately, usually by a company, of which the leaseholders are directors and own equal shares of that company, not the freehold itself iyswim.

If you look at the Land registry, you should see three titles - two leasehold titles and one freehold.

G_M

If the arrangement is that each leaseholder has equal access to all the garden, the only ways to change that are
1) an informal agreement between all residents (which the freeholder either doesn't know about or ignores) or
2) amendment to all the leases, with freeholder's consent - and some legal costs.

As Jamesd says, it's a common arrangement. Usually the freehold would be shared by the two leaseholders (flat owners) but one may have sold his lease and kept his share of the freehold or whatever.

the important thing to find out is whether there is an actively involved shared-freeholder (whoever it is) otherwise getting repairs etc done can become a problem.

firsttimebuyer2011

Thanks for the replies.

As i understand it (not yet seen the lease), my flat would be the standard lease with half share of the freehold. I naturally assumed downstairs owned the other half. Is it possible for a property divided into two maisonettes to only be partly emancipated? In other words can one flat take a share of the freehold, but the other share remain with the original freeholder? Does that make sense?

G_M

firsttimebuyer2011 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

As i understand it (not yet seen the lease), my flat would be the standard lease with half share of the freehold. I naturally assumed downstairs owned the other half. Is it possible for a property divided into two maisonettes to only be partly emancipated? In other words can one flat take a share of the freehold, but the other share remain with the original freeholder? Does that make sense?

As Jamesd says, it's a common arrangement. Usually the freehold would be shared by the two leaseholders (flat owners) but one may have sold his lease and kept his share of the freehold or whatever.

The only thing to add is that if you find out the flats do NOT have separate leases, but ONLY have shared freehold, walk away - you'll never get a mortgage anyway.

There must be seaparate leases for each flat AND a separate freehold (which can be owned by an individual, several individuals jointly, or a company).

firsttimebuyer2011

Thanks G_m.

To me, having a clearly defined private half of a garden is much more desirable than some fuzzy agreement about a shared space.

And if the shared freeholder isn't physically around to agree to a lease change, I can see this becoming a major problem.

Flats eh? What a load of palaver!!

firsttimebuyer2011

G_M wrote: »

As Jamesd says, it's a common arrangement. Usually the freehold would be shared by the two leaseholders (flat owners) but one may have sold his lease and kept his share of the freehold or whatever.

The only thing to add is that if you find out the flats do NOT have separate leases, but ONLY have shared freehold, walk away - you'll never get a mortgage anyway.

There must be seaparate leases for each flat AND a separate freehold (which can be owned by an individual, several individuals jointly, or a company).

As far as I know, each maisonette has a separate lease. My maisonette comes with additional 50% share of freehold. But if downstairs is only leasehold, I wonder who owns their share of the freehold - and where the dickens they are.

G_M

firsttimebuyer2011 wrote: »

As far as I know, each maisonette has a separate lease. My maisonette comes with additional 50% share of freehold. But if downstairs is only leasehold, I wonder who owns their share of the freehold - and where the dickens they are.

It's not 'their share of the freehold'. They have no share!

Download the freehold Title from the Land Registry here for £4 to find out who owns it.

But if the garden is a show-stopper, save your £4!

firsttimebuyer2011

G_M wrote: »

It's not 'their share of the freehold'. They have no share!



But if the garden is a show-stopper, save your £4!

Forgive me, I was using shorthand. I meant "who owns the share that I
assumed belonged to the ground floor maisonette".

The current owner of the first floor flat is happy to look into the garden issue, so I think that 4 quid is worth paying.

Thanks again

Richard_Webster

OK so can I check the facts or at least what OP thinks are the facts?

OP is buying from V who has lease of 1st floor maisonette. G owns ground floor maisonette but the freehold is owned by V and X (someone else - not G). Is that OP's understanding?

If that is the case then V needs X's signature to transfer a "share" in the freehold to OP - he cannot do it on his own, unless (fairly unlikely) there is a trust deed in place to get round the difficult y of the absence of X).

Similarly without X's signature the leases cannot be altered to change the garden arrangement.

V cannot transfer the freehold of just his flat to OP - he would still need X's signature to do this, and guess what, if he could do that then the flat would immediately become unmortgageable as a pure freehold flat and go down in value by around 30%!

As it is, the flat is possibly mortgageable because some lenders will lend where there are missing freeholders if you take out an indemnity policy - problem is that you can't guarantee that will be the case when you come to sell.

I am sad to say that people go into these shared freehold situations without really understanding the risks and possible future problems. OK, things don't often go wrong, but when they do they are very difficult to sort out.