urgent advice on a purchase

szofar

Hi

Im new to this forum and need some urgent advice

I am in the process of purchasing a Public House and converting it to residential dwelling
It is a cash purchase. I have received a letter from my solicitor that the contract is ready to be signed.
Now i have spoken to my solicitor and he stated that a lease was taken out on the property in 2008 and has not been cancelled.

My worry is that this is going to delay the completion even longer.

can i still complete with this issue or do i need to get the lease cancelled or can i complete and still go through the cancellation process.

What problems can this cause?

Any advice will be much apreciiated

BitterAndTwisted

What do you mean "a lease was taken out"? Did you think you were buying the freehold? How long is the lease?

PasturesNew

I'm not clear on what you're buying. If you're buying a freehold pub and there's a lease on it, then somebody else has the right to be living in it/running a pub there until the end of that lease.

You can't go ahead without getting to the bottom of it.

How far along the change of use planning process are you? Are you having to prove the pub business isn't viable? How long has it not been viable?

BitterAndTwisted

Why have you got to the exchange of contracts stage to discover the property is leasehold? I would have thought that this would be the first thing which showed up in the usual searches.

I believe the OP is confused between a lease and a charge, perhaps

szofar

Thanks for your replies

Planning is in process and the property is freehold.

From my understanding it was a tenancy lease for a certain period.
the tenant must have closed the public house due to lack of business and the lease period is still active. if you understand what i mean,

The pub was up for sale for over a year until i purchased it.

i hope this makes sense

szofar

like to add
it is a cash purchase and i only authorized local authority search

the searches did not reveal any adverse entries

Kynthia

So you could end up being a landlord to whoever has a lease on this property.

G_M

Local Authority search would not show a lease.

That will be lodged with the Land Registry.

If there is an ongoing lease, even if apparantly 'abandoned', then unless/untill it is cancelled you'd be mad to proceed.

Leaseholder could wait till you completed the conversion, then demand to move in for the remaining period of the lease!

Have you seen the lease, or LR lease Title? If it were not a bank holiday weekend, you could download both the Freehold Title, and Leasehold Title yourself here for £3 each. But you'll have to wait till Tuesday.

szofar

No i have not seen the lease also i tried downloading but its not registered on the land registry website.

I have a appointment on wednesday with my solicitor so il go through it with him then.

Is it easy to cancel a lease? How long does it take?

Now thinking about it you could be right in saying after i complete the leaseholder could want to move in. In reality its been empty for well over a year due to dimise of business and is being converted to residential dwelling.

Just a thought if the change of use is changed for the property does it not invalidate the lease because when the lease was taken out it was for a public house

szofar

Also will the lease not be void due to the lease being with the previous landlord and im the new owner

anselld

szofar wrote: »

Also will the lease not be void due to the lease being with the previous landlord and im the new owner

No, any tenancy agreement or lease transfers to the new Landlord on purchase.