Am I being a pushover? (Dodgy freeholder woes)

Reds-on-Sea

Hiya all, I’m looking for a bit of advice regarding the freeholder on a flat I own.

I have a first floor flat that I’m looking to rent out in the near future, and I’d like to get a few things straight before I do.

The ground floor is (as far as I know) registered as a commercial premises and is currently vacant.
The owner of downstairs (and my freeholder) is fairly amicable... when I can actually get hold of him. (I chased him for at least a year when i was trying to get my conveyancing done.)

1.) Is it correct that I have to obtain written permission from him before I can rent it out?

So – Mr Freeholder has sectioned off the back half of the commercial premises downstairs and has made it into a 2-bed flat (must be very, very small), so the shop at the front is (for example) number 1, I’m 1A, and he’s seemingly created a new address of 1B.

2.) Can I find out whether I can find out if this address is registered as a residential (as opposed to commercial) premises? Or has he found a loophole by creating a new address.

On top of that… there is a garden at the rear of the property with shared access – I have stairs going down into the garden. The flat used to belong to my mum, the stairs used to go down next to the back wall of the property from the balcony outside the back door. The demise on the deeds shows ownership as the whole flat plus a rectangle outside that covers the area of the stairs. Anyway, my mum passed away and in the few weeks after, I went round one day to check the flat was secure and looked out the back door – someone had built a small wooden extension to the balcony to enable the stairs to be installed (quite badly) at 90 degrees into the middle of the garden. I tried getting in touch with Mr freeholder at the time, but as you can imagine there was a lot going on. The tenants he had in were vile and had a scary dog, so I didn’t dare ask them (they turned out to be growing cannabis before they did a runner). Nobody asked mine or my mum’s permission to make these changes, and as it stands, by the letter of the deeds, the stairs are outside the demise line. Now nobody’s contesting it at the moment, but I don’t want to be in the situation where it is in the future and I lose rear access altogether. I asked Mr. freeholder about it once, but he’s very dismissive and brushed it off.
The reason this happened is because the bottom of the stairs were in the way of the entrance to the dodgy temporary extension he or his tenants at the time built in the garden. (If you can imagine a typical Victorian terrace, they’ve ‘built’ the extension to fill in the L-shape)

3.) What should I do about this?

4.) Is the ‘extension’ legal, and do I just have to put up with it?

5.) Am I right in thinking I shouldn't have to pay for the stairs to be returned to their rightful position, should this need to happen?

Please bear in mind I haven’t kicked up a fuss about any of this, patiently sent Mr. Freeholder loads of polite letters asking for details of Buildings insurance (still no reply, have no clue as to whether the building is insured), ground rent (barely replied, but I have a contract that says it’s set in stone as £100pa for X number of years) etc etc. I did feel quite put out by the fact that whoever moved and “rebuilt” the stairs did so at a time when they were blatantly taking advantage of my mum’s absence etc, but when I asked him about it, he said he didn’t need permission for the extension (as it’s his land) and that it would be staying. I suppose on the plus side, my balcony is a bit bigger, but I have a gut feeling it's not right... I just don't know how to proceed with this. The stairs and the extension thing are connected as the stairs being returned to their rightful position will interfere with the entrance to the dodgy extension/lean to he's go down there on his dodgy flat. He doesn't live there, he's got a couple of young men living there (we haven't met), but they seem okay. I don't particularly want to cause any grief for potential tenants that I have in the future (I'm looking for some really nice tenants who are looking to keep the flat long-term)

Thanks for reading. Sorry, it's log, I’ve numbered the Qs to make it clear what i’m asking. Thanks!

ognum

This is complicated you need a lawyer!

Reds-on-Sea

Thanks. I think you're right. I'll book an appointment!

Any other responses to any of the other questions gratefully received tho!

AdrianC

Reds-on-Sea wrote: »

1.) Is it correct that I have to obtain written permission from him before I can rent it out?

What does your lease say?

2.) Can I find out whether I can find out if this address is registered as a residential (as opposed to commercial) premises?[/B] Or has he found a loophole by creating a new address.

You can do a council tax search.
https://www.gov.uk/council-tax-bands

3.) What should I do about this?

So these stairs are in the shared area, with the freeholder's permission? If so, then not a lot. But if they do restrict your access to the shared area, then you have grounds to do something.

4.) Is the ‘extension’ legal, and do I just have to put up with it?

Is it within permitted development rules? It sounds it. If so, then yes.

stator

Doesn't sound like permitted development, sounds like he has gone beyond permitted development by infilling what little space was left. Also if you have shared use of the garden/yard then by building on it he has infringed on your rights to use of that part of the yard.