Who owns 'my' cellar?

angrypirate

Tommoh wrote: »

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...

The ownership of the cellar is already included in the lease. The cellar will fall under the "structure below the floors" claus. I suggest you speak in a neighbourly fashion to her and point this out. Then say that if she wishes to persue this further then to speak to you solicitor.

The reason may be something as simply as preventing any future owners of the flat extending into the basement

Get rid of her boxes in YOUR cellar. Issues like this can be avoided by charging a pepparcorn rent - Ie 50p a month, payable as £6 on the annual anniversary.

Tommoh

Thanks again,

We have tried the 'neighbourly' approach, but she adopted the tactic of turning her back on us and screaming at the wall if we tried to talk to her. This may give you an idea of what we're dealing with.
I realise that we're probably going to have to take out a section 42 action to extend our lease, but this is money we can ill afford, especially as we will also have to pay the other owner at the same time, totalling about £32,000

We did get all her boxes out when we were smartening the place up prior to putting it on the market. I like the idea of charging her rent for storage, but I guess this cannot be done retrospectively, or can it?
I agree that the cellar is (almost certainly) legally ours, but the sticking point is that unless we agree to her having storage and access rights she will not agree to extending our lease without a large fee. At the same time, I would imagine this would mean our flat is virtually unsellable. Would you buy a property where someone is legally allowed to access your flat to store her stuff?

Our next plan of action may be to rent somewhere nearby and rent out our place, simply to be out from under her, as the situation is affecting us badly. Anyone know any death-metal bands who pay their rent reliably?

poppysarah

Tommoh wrote: »

. Would you buy a property where someone is legally allowed to access your flat to store her stuff?

No!



Could your cellar accidentally flood?

Is her stuff insured if it's in your cellar?


You could open a can of worms by ringing your insurance and asking how it affects your insurance if she has access to your property - AND then tell her you will be charging her rent of (work out how much storage at a storage place would charge her) AND the cost of insuring it.

Get her quotes for nearby storage place to show her how fair you are being (Woudl consider asking for 10% more for the convenience factor)

Tommoh

Oh for crying out loud. Now she's going to try to charge us £13,000 for the 'loss' of her cellar, as well as still refusing to sign our lease extension without charging us there as well.

She's suggested she can let all this pass if we sell the flat for 50k under the market price to her brother.

Yeah, Right.

Emmzi

Tell her that if you cannot sell at a price that enables you to move, you will be getting consent to let, and renting it to the council for five years, as you hear they do a decent rental income to offest the damage their ASBO and difficult to house tennants cause - the ones they put into private rentals so as not to cause trouble on their own estates. Yes, it might be a bit messy when you come back to it, but not 50ks worth of messy.

See what she says?

axisofunity

Your documents appeared clear. You own the cellar. Start thinking about small claims against her. If only "General idiot behaviour" would qualify. Anyway, you need to fight back. It is not her cellar.

Yorkie1

Tommoh wrote: »

Oh for crying out loud. Now she's going to try to charge us £13,000 for the 'loss' of her cellar, as well as still refusing to sign our lease extension without charging us there as well.

She's suggested she can let all this pass if we sell the flat for 50k under the market price to her brother.

Yeah, Right.

Ever heard of blackmail? Sounds rather like it to me...

vickyj

I would start being a nightmare neighbour if i were you.

Tommoh

Yeah, I'm already planning a rather interesting floral display for our garden next year. A few dozen daffodil bulbs spelling out exactly what I feel. Should look a treat in spring.

We're already at the point where renting the flat out may be the best option, if only to get away from her. The local authority option is certainly worth pursuing.

JQ.

Tommoh wrote: »

We're already at the point where renting the flat out may be the best option, if only to get away from her. The local authority option is certainly worth pursuing.

Whilst there are internet forums for Moneysaving, there are also forums for death metal, happy hardcore and thrash metal music, perhaps they would be appropriate locations for your "to let" advert.