Unsellable?

karlos78

First post, perhaps a bit meandering so apologies. Just looking for some advice/anyone who has been in a similar situation and got out of it!

My partner owns a one bedroom flat, leasehold, which we are looking to sell but there are a couple of issues.

The lease is below 80 years and the freeholder is not responding to any letters asking for an extension. The flat isn't worth that much and we are not sure if getting some legal help is worth it. Do people buy flats with less than 80 years on the lease?

The second issue is that the ground floor flat is a mess and the owner has not replaced a broken window (broken by tenants). She has been telling us she will get it fixed for over a year now but hasn't. I can't see how anyone would buy a flat when the first view is of a boarded up window. Any thoughts on how to deal with this?

We are just going to keep plodding along, and I know we're lucky to have a place to live and not be under too much financial strain. Would like to here any thoughts from people who've been in similar situations that they are willing to share.

Cheers.

k

anselld

Anything is sellable at the right price.
Have you thought about auction?

princeofpounds

There are mechanisms in place to deal with these issues. Visit LEASE which is a free govt funded advise service to learn more.

http://www.lease-advice.org/

The flat is not unsellable with a shorter lease, although as you move from 80 through to 70 years you will find less and less mortgage lenders willing to lend on it. That means less potential buyers, maybe only cash buyers, and likely a lower price.

You can go through the LVT process to force a lease extension. Takes a little time but will totally resolve that problem.

tim123456789

karlos78 wrote: »

First post, perhaps a bit meandering so apologies. Just looking for some advice/anyone who has been in a similar situation and got out of it!

My partner owns a one bedroom flat, leasehold, which we are looking to sell but there are a couple of issues.

The lease is below 80 years and the freeholder is not responding to any letters asking for an extension.

k

Is the FH generally un-contactable or are they just exercising their right not to respond to non-statutory requests for lease extensions.

tim

karlos78

Thanks for responses so far.

FH is generally uncontactable - in a previous conversation he has said he wants nothing more to do with the building, I think mostly because of the owner and tenants of the ground floor flat who are a bit of a nightmare.

This would be fine apart from the fact that he has to be the one buying buildings insurance, which he didn't do for a couple of years.

We basically want to meet our obligations and want him to meet his without resorting to some messy legal battle which won't get us anywhere closer to selling the place.

ognum

As suggested above I would go to auction. You might not get as much as you want bit if you put a low enough reserve someone will buy.

Then you will have sold in 28 days, no legal action, no lease extension needed.

moneyistooshorttomention

Perhaps you should send letters to him Recorded Delivery?

Would make it more difficult for him to pretend he hasn't had them.

Do you know where he lives and both of you could turn up there first thing? One to hand him a letter and the other one to photograph that you had just done so.

tim123456789

Well you have two problems.

The first is that the FH is not managing the block as required. Is this just a 2 unit block or are there more than 2?

If the latter and you can get more than half to agree you can vote for an RTM and manage it yourself (you can do this if there are just two flats, but you need the vote of the GGF and presumably you won't get that)

As to the lease extension, there is a process that you can follow to obtain such from a non responsive FH if you lodge the necessary statutory request and he doesn't respond. The link to lease-advice above will help you do this