Purchase of a Freehold which contains a leased garage

jamiebates1987

Hi Everyone,

I have purchased a new build coach house with two garages beneath. One is mine and the other is a leasehold between the builder and a social housing organisation. Should the leasehold have been rewritten to include my name as the free holder or does the lease remain unchanged?

There is also a disposal clause which prevents the transfer of the garage lease separately from the block of flats nearby which the social housing organisation own. Is there anyway round these clauses or are they fixed? The land registry document refers to this restriction and quotes section 172 of the housing and regen act 2008. legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/17/section/172 Does this mean that if I wanted to buy it I would need permission of the social housing company as well as the local council or would this still not change the fact that the garage cannot be transferred separately from the flats freehold?

Thanks,

Jamie

Land_Registry

If you bought the freehold to the garage then the freehold title would be updated to refer to your name and details.
The original lease would not be amended and nor would the leasehold title to the garage.

The meaning and impact of the restriction is probably something you will need to seek legal advice on or make enquiries of the social housing organisation. It is likely that the permission to build the development required a portion to be set aside for social housing (common in most local authorities).

To complete a purchase of the garage and to remove the restriction you may need the consent and approval of some 'higher authority' in the area of social housing e.g. Tenant Services Authority but this will be a specialist area on which we cannot advise.

The best place to ask that question is probably of the social housing organisation themselves.

propertyman

It reads as if the garages were built and to be sold on leases and it so happens that you bought one along with the freehold of the coach house. Had you not someone else, a flat owner might have done so.

In such a case the restriction should not have been accepted and replaced instead requiring that the lease not be sold without the coach house, or alternatively the lease surrendered and included in your freehold title.

As psoted its likely uneforceable as you are not a flat in that block and in effect cannot be sold at all unless to flat owner, which is pretty useless as you cant' sell the coach house and the garage to a new owner, as he will not be a flat owner in the block!

Sounds like scruffy conveyancing - talk to your solicitor not the social housing provider as you wont get through to anyone who even begins to understand your question .