Who owns 'my' cellar?

Tommoh

Hi All,

Hopefully some kind soul will have an answer to this, as I am truly at my wits end.
A few months ago,we were hoping to move house and got both a buyer and a seller lined up. However, we hit a major problem when we realised the length of our lease was such that it would be difficult for our buyer to arrange a mortgage. As we are joint freeholders of our property with the other 2 flats in the building, we thought this would be a simple case of asking them to sign an agreement to our lease being extended, but sadly one of the other owners has put major obstructions in our way at every point in the procedure for reasons best known to herself (see thread which I can not link to, but if you search my other posts it will be fairly obvious)
and is now claiming part-ownership of the cellar.
We own the ground floor garden flat along with the communal entrance hall and the only access into the cellar is through our property. However, when the original lease was written up long before we moved in, there was no mention of the cellar on the deeds, only a reference to property consisting of "The ground floor flat...including the ceilings ,the floors and the structure below the floors"
As a favour to our neighbour we (stupidly as it turns out) allowed her to store a box in the cellar, and she is now trying to claim that this means that the cellar is a communal area.
Has anyone else experienced this type of dispute, and if so how did it turn out in the end?
Our neighbour has already ruined our summer and wasted us thousands of pounds which we can truly ill afford (the last £900 of my savings went on paying for a wasted draft for a new lease yesterday)

Thanks in advance for any feedback...

BitterAndTwisted

If your lease didn't include the cellar then you don't own it unless that mention of the "structure below the floors" can be interpreted as the cellar. That is most certainly what I would interpret it to mean. I can't see how it could be jointly-owned if the only access to it is through your own property as you could very easily deny access if you had a mind to. I would invite the other owner to remove their carp out of there as you intend to deny any access whatsoever as of x date.

puddy

i dont know if this is relevant but we were looking at a lovely property which had a cellar which ran under the next door house. we were told it was unmortgagable in the current climate because it was a flying freehold. we had never heard of it but its when some of your property is underneath something owned by someone else (it could be a passage way or something)

this is obviously different as you are talking about flats but if you share the freehold, then surely you share all of the freehold which includes the cellar?

i dont understand how you are joint freeholders but then say that you own specific common areas, surely you all own them together?

pinkshoes

Tommoh wrote: »

"The ground floor flat...including the ceilings ,the floors and the structure below the floors"

Surely "structure below the floors" is referring to the cellar, in which case it's yours?

westv

pinkshoes wrote: »

Surely "structure below the floors" is referring to the cellar, in which case it's yours?

or maybe it means the joists??

princeofpounds

Do you have a lease plan? Have you looked for one on the land registry?

A plan might be under the freehold title too.

paddyrg

The neighbour causing trouble is clearly hoping as a part-freeholder that they can hold you/someone else to ransom in the future.

As for the communality of the cellar, I think you need an aggressive stance on this land-grab (after all, they won't be your neighbours for much longer). Instruct your solicitor accordingly.

KRB2725

Unless they have a right of way/access (which I'm assuming they don't), then why would the even want to claim part of the cellar as theirs? It would be totally pointless & useless.

J_i_m

Well, some people like being difficult so they do.

JQ.

Speak to your other neighbour about it, I'll bet he's come across things like this before and will have experience of how to resolve such issues at a minimum cost, which is what property development is all about.

However, the reality of the situation is that the only person who can accurately answer your question is your solicitor, as they've read the whole of your lease and understand all the issues at the property.

casper_g

I wonder, do the leases for the upstairs flats contain the same wording re. the "structure under the floor"?