Flying Freehold to Leasehold

spushkakat

I bought a house five years ago - one downstairs room has the neighbours bedroom above it so it's classed as a flying freehold. Now the neighbours are looking to move and the new potential owners mortgage company are unhappy about it being a flying freehold and are insisting on changes.

The first change they considered was altering the land registry as that only showed my house on its plans and nothing for there house - mine is downstairs so I'm assuming the land registry is mainly ground floor. They decided not to do this.

They have now decided the best thing to do is alter it to a leasehold. So I lease the upstairs to the neighbour for 999 years... Does this create any problems for me?

Land_Registry

Two things to note here although best to discuss with a legal adviser or ask the buyer to discuss with their proposed lender.

1. The title plan (Land Registry plan) shows the general boundaries of the title as usually mapped at the time that it was first registered. The buildings/physical features which had been mapped by Ordnance Survey at the time would be shown and Land Registry add the general boundaries (red lines). If buildings change shape such as when extensions are built the plan is not resurveyed by OS or remapped by us as the general boundaries have not changed. Seeking to have the plan amended is therefore unlikely to have resulted in any change.

2. If there is a flying freehold then the bedroom (floor level) should already be registered as part of next door's freehold title. As a result it would not be yours to lease unless it is transferred into your title first - by defintion both titles should refer to entries which exclude/include respectively the flting freehold part

Note - I have seen a few threads recently referring to issues around securing a loan against a flying freehold. However I am unaware as to why some lenders now appear 'unhappy' when such issues, in my experience, have rarely arisen before.

propertyman

Land_Registry_representative wrote: »

Note - I have seen a few threads recently referring to issues around securing a loan against a flying freehold. However I am unaware as to why some lenders now appear 'unhappy' when such issues, in my experience, have rarely arisen before.

Well they always have been as if the house under bedroom is not maintained it can fal into disprepair and the statutory remedies to effecting repair are expensive and limited in effectiveness.

The days of councils willingly stepping in and repairing and recharging are long gone.

Frankly its rarely spotted thats why it rarely comes up.

Land_Registry

propertyman wrote: »

Well they always have been as if the house under bedroom is not maintained it can fal into disprepair and the statutory remedies to effecting repair are expensive and limited in effectiveness.

The days of councils willingly stepping in and repairing and recharging are long gone.

Frankly its rarely spotted thats why it rarely comes up.

Many thanks propertyman. I know such issues attach to flying freeholds but it was more the 'why now' aspect when many have existed for so long and in my experience at least used to secure a legal charge against - they are certainly not rare after all.

The suggestions made to date suggested a lack of understanding rather than a lack of awareness but it will be interesting to see what response spushkakat receives from the neighbour/buyer/lender

propertyman

IME it because it is rarely spotted by the factory conveyancing firms, and often junior staff employed in firms to do conveyancing unless it is very obvious in some way.

There was a recent thread here where the OP got all tied up with !!!!!! based on a plan and inspection, and many had commented and none except this wandering surveyor's eye spotted that as the staircases very clearly didnt line up on the floor plans it was an EA's cheapo floor plan software.