Freehold - Right to Refuse for Leaseholder.

pine77

I bought a flat in a house consisting of a total of two flats. One on the ground floor and one above on the first floor. The flats are about the same size but the ground floor one comes with a little garden.

The flat I purchased was the flat on the first floor. The vendor was renting the flat. During the negotiations - I managed to get him to sell me the freehold (which he owned) on the whole building. The flat downstairs is on an 80 year lease.

It all went through fine and now I live there. However I finally managed to find the leaseholder of the ground-floor flat - also rented. He told me in broken English he is not interested in paying ground rent because the way I acquired the freehold was illegal - he says he should have had first right of refusal. I contacted my lawyer yesterday and he said in such a situation where the Leaseholder/s make up less than 50% of the flats owned - the vendor was under no obligation to offer this sole leaseholder the Freehold. Is this correct? I think my lawyer is competent and correct, my only worry is that the ground floor flat has a garden and I don't - so this leaseholder has a property is slightly bigger than mine.. but my understanding is that the law simply states - that the leaseholder needs to have over 50% of flats owned - ie more than two flats - not over 50% of the total square meter of the property. Is that correct? Any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks for your time.

Pine77.

pine77

Anyone?

G_M

The size of the properties is irrelevant.

It is the number of individual leases that matters.

See also:

http://www.lease-advice.org/advice-guide/right-of-first-refusal/

There are three requirements for the building to be subject to the RFR:

• it must contain at least two flats; and
• no more than 50% of the building to be in non-residential use; and
• more than 50% of the flats in the building must be held by ‘qualifying tenants’.

pine77

Few. Thanks G_M.

G_M

pine77 wrote: »

Few. Thanks G_M.

You can't get much fewer than two....

G_M

Correction:

My quote in post 2 above only relates to whether a building qualifies for RFR - which it appears your build does I think.

However, if the freeholder/seller had given notice to the two leaseholders (ie himself and the owner of the ground floor) of his intention to sell and their Right of First Refusal, then

If the qualifying tenants wish to take up the offer, the requisite majority must write to accept. That majority is more than 50% of the qualifying tenants (counting one vote per flat).

Obviously he himself would not wish to take up the offer, so the owner of the ground floor could not have reached the "'more than 50%" threshold.

See also section 6.1: Duties of the new landlord to inform the tenants

Note that I'm not expert in this field, so read the guidance!

pine77

Maybe we are reading too much into this. The leaseholder on the ground floor never owned more than 50% of the flats in the house.

End of, no?