Coach house freehold advice!!

Ukkuty

In your shoes, I'd start by making absolutely certain that I owned what I thought I owned.

hi thanks could someone have look on Land registry then and tell me what do you think ??
postimg.org/gallery/xd829k3e/

EmmyLou30

Most coach houses are freehold, you own the whole building, including all the garages and the one parking space in front the garage that belongs to you.....then the other garage users have a 999 year lease and pay you a contribution towards insuring them. They also probably own the parking space in front their garage as the coach house doesn't own that.

So in answer to the OP question....if you wanted to convert any of the garages aside from your own, you'd need to buy the lease back from whichever flat or house has it at a mutually agreeable price. Bearing in mind you would have to purchase their parking space from them as well if you wanted that as well. I can see someone being willing to sell you their garage lease at a price, but not their parking space.

I know it seems odd that you own the whole building, including the garages, but can't touch them or evict the leaseholder but that's the law and they have a 999 year lease. Once that expires and you do not renew it you can have the garage back :-)

silvercar

Ukkuty wrote: »

hi thanks could someone have look on Land registry then and tell me what do you think ??
postimg.org/gallery/xd829k3e/

Interesting. It looks like the building structure is T-shaped.

Without google street view (and I managed to work out where you are) it is difficult to see exactly what is there. I did find your area, but google street view last recorded before your home was built!

SO tell me if I'm correct. On one side there are 4 garages, the second one is yours. Directly behind your garage is the downstairs of your home. Assuming you have an upstairs, this extends above your downstairs and above all 4 garages.

I can't work out if you have a garden and where that would be.

My finger has done some walking. Second opinion based on homes nearby. From the front there will be:

garage-front door-garage-garage

So in the middle of the bank of garages is your front door, that takes you to a hall way and stairs to upstairs where the bulk of your home is. Can't work out if the tail of the T is all yours (upstairs & down) or what.

But it does look like you have a freehold with the garages having a 999 year lease.

G_M

Ukkuty wrote: »

hi thanks could someone have look on Land registry then and tell me what do you think ??
postimg.org/gallery/xd829k3e/

You appear to be right. The freehold is subject to 3 leases (the other garages). Unusual.

However, it does not alter the advice given, either to your purchase of one of the garages, or enforcement of the terms of the leases.

Ukkuty

This is what it's looks like postimg.org/gallery/299jsrnuk

Ukkuty

econd opinion based on homes nearby. From the front there will be:

garage-front door-garage-garage

Yes thats right !!

Richard_Webster

This isn't a freehold flat in the classic unmortgageable sense. The key difference here is that OP has the freehold of the land beneath (subject to and with the benefit of the garage leases) as well as his flat. Classic freehold flats have separate freholds of parts of a building above/below each other.

This is similar to the situation where you have a building divided into upo to 4 flats (usually converted) where three flats are leasehold and the freeholder owns the whole building and is entitled to occupy the remaining flat that does not have a lease. This is generally accepted by mortgage lenders provided a broker doesn't mess things up and baldly say that the flat is freehold without quoting the paragraph in the Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook that deals with the point.

The more practical issues here are around the issue that the coach house owner gernerally didn't expect to be other peoples' (the garage lessees') landlord. So if the freeholder has to insure the whole building and collect a proportion of the cost of this from the garage lessees, there are often problems e.g. in that:

1. the freeholder has difficulty in persuading insurance companies of the postion and getting insurance; and
2. the garage lessees resent getting demands for payment and may refuse to pay or aargue about the amount.

The freeholder may have the legal remedies in theory but in practice taking people to court over relatively small sums can be a big hassle and not something that the average owner-occupier wants to do.

If the development contains blocks of flats then a coachhouse and the garages beneath can be managed with the blocks of flats and can all be leasehold, but if the rest of the development consists of houses then the developer doesn't want to set up third party management arrangements just for the one building.

xylophone

because they are absolutely disrespectful and they shouldn't do anything in garage apart using it as storage as it says in lease !!

A garage, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is

A building for housing a motor vehicle or vehicles:

Surely they can park their vehicles in their garages?

What exactly are they doing that is "disrespectful"?

Surely when you bought the property you understood ( your solicitor explained) the implication of a 999 year lease?

You clearly did not want a flat and yet in effect this is what you have?

Consider selling and buying a conventional house?

DRFC1879

TBF, the OP hasn't said what they're doing in there. Storing vehicles is fine but if they're using it as a DJ booth with music blaring out till 3 am every other night, that wouldn't be acceptable.

EmmyLou30

Garages below coach houses don't have an electricity supply due to the complications that would arise from trying to meter and bill them all separately! So they can't be doing anything noisy like drilling and sawing or music.