Sale fallen through due to freeholder not supplying buildings insurance

WGHB77

Hi,


I wonder if anyone can advise. We are trying to sell our house and we accepted an offer early in August. The house is freehold and the garage is leasehold. The garage is in a row of 3 with a coach house/flat above. The garage has a 999 year lease with nil annual payment/rent.


The buyers solicitor requires a copy of the buildings insurance held by the freeholder who should insure the block as a whole (the 3 garages and the flat) as per the lease. This has proven difficult.


Although we have answered all other enquires raised by the buyers solicitor, the buyer has suddenly pulled out.


I was not made aware of any of this when I purchased the property. It was only recently I discovered the freeholder is the owner of the flat above the garages, this is our next door neighbour.


My first approach was to go and knock on his door. He was friendly and helpful and explained he understands his responsibilities of being the freeholder. He didn't really want to get involved but he signed a letter stating he was the freeholder, he insures the block as per the lease and included the insurance company and the policy number. He also mentioned the buyer could pop round and view the policy in person. Unfortunately this was not accepted by the buyers solicitor.


I then wrote an informal and friendly letter to him, confirming the letter he kindly supplied was not accepted and that we needed a copy of the buildings insurance as this was holding up the sale of our house. This was ignored.


At the start of the week, I instructed my solicitor to write to the freeholder asking for this information. This has not yet been sent out by the solicitor (possibly sent today) but now the buyer has dropped out.


I am obviously very disappointed but have no problems putting it back on the market but am worried I will go through all of this again. Both solicitors have not offered any solutions and I now feel trapped trying to supply documents I do not have.


Has anybody else been in this situation? It is a modern development and I understand this is a fairly common set up (the 3 garages with a flat above).


Is there anyway of overcoming this insurance issue? I would have done anything to get this to exchange.


Thank you for your help.

G_M

WGHB77 wrote: »

Hi,

.....


At the start of the week, I instructed my solicitor to write to the freeholder asking for this information. This has not yet been sent out by the solicitor (possibly sent today) but now the buyer has dropped out.
.......

Why was this not done right back at the start?

Naturally the buyer does not want to get involved in owning a place which is not insured, or where he's going to have ongoing problems with the freeholder getting insurance in place.

Once he (and/or his solicitor) sees the insurance policy, he may re-start the purchase process.

Or it may be too late and he's well advanced finding somewhere less problematic.

WGHB77

Thank you G_M for your quick reply. I did not know who the freeholder was until recently (3 weeks ago) and as he is our neighbour thought it would be best to try and deal with it ourselves. I spoke to him, then wrote to him and when my requests were ignored thought the next stage should be for a solicitor to write to him. The problem is the time frame of waiting.


Is it a simple matter of waiting for a copy of the insurance or is there any other way to overcome this?

Thrugelmir

The buyers solicitor requires a copy of the buildings insurance held by the freeholder who should insure the block as a whole (the 3 garages and the flat) as per the lease. This has proven difficult.

How long ago was this originally requested?

WGHB77

Thrugelmir wrote: »

How long ago was this originally requested?

The original request was made middle of September. We had confirmation of who the freeholder was the beginning of October.

xylophone

Presumably the freeholder could simply photocopy the policy assuming that he has a printer or if not, and assuming that you have one, could bring in into your house so that you could do it?

As a matter of interest, when you purchased the property, what were you told about insuring your leasehold garage?

WGHB77

xylophone wrote: »

Presumably the freeholder could simply photocopy the policy assuming that he has a printer or if not, and assuming that you have one, could bring in into your house so that you could do it?

As a matter of interest, when you purchased the property, what were you told about insuring your leasehold garage?

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I believe that is all that was/is required but the freeholder has not done this after been asked. He said he doesn't really want to get involved and doesn't want his insurance policy being passed around solicitors?


Obviously looking back this was an oversight on my part, but I was not told anything by my previous solicitor when purchasing the property. I was only told that the garage was leasehold on a 999 year lease with nil annual payment. I presumed my home insurance covered my garage, which was confirmed recently as been the case by my insurer.

davidmcn

WGHB77 wrote: »

I presumed my home insurance covered my garage, which was confirmed recently as been the case by my insurer.

Apart from a (presumably trivial) duplication of costs, can anyone comment on why a purchaser can't just continue this arrangement?

xylophone

I presumed my home insurance covered my garage, which was confirmed recently as been the case by my insurer.

Is there not a problem if the same property is covered by two policies?

If your garage was damaged by fire say, would the freeholder expect his insurer to pay out as well as yours for the same damage?

BrassicWoman

do you financially contribute to his cost of insuring your garage?

moneyistooshorttomention

davidmcn wrote: »

Apart from a (presumably trivial) duplication of costs, can anyone comment on why a purchaser can't just continue this arrangement?

Don't know if I'm reading this wrong - but it sounds to me as if both the freeholder and OP have been insuring the garage.

Quite apart from the fact that one of them has been wasting their money then (presumably OP) - it would probably be the case that the two insurance companies would "slug it out" between them in the event of a claim being made on the garage. Presumably buyers' solicitor spotted that fact and didn't want his client potentially in the middle of a battle between two insurers - as, at the least, there would be likely to be a delay in processing any claim whilst they fought it out.