Same property but recorded twice at LR

Chanes

anselld wrote: »

Every Leasehold is part of a Freehold. Both are recorded.
It would be very curious if you had a Leasehold which is *not* within another Freehold Title.

So, I should be seeing two reports for every house that is a leasehold? I think I have muddied the water even more now because that one is the only one and two others and just noted as leasehold with no other mention of a freehold. Thanks for the reply, I guess I should check those two for more details.

G_M

Chanes wrote: »

So, I should be seeing two reports for every house that is a leasehold? I think I have muddied the water even more now because that one is the only one and two others and just noted as leasehold with no other mention of a freehold. Thanks for the reply, I guess I should check those two for more details.

If you have a lease permitting you to use a property for, say, 99 years, and also permitting you to sell that lease to someone else, then by definition somewhere there is also a freeholder.

When the 99 year lease expires, the freeholder gets the property back (unless they extend the lease).

The freehold may be for
* exactly the same address ( eg a house), or
* a broader building address (eg a block of 6 flats where there's a single freehold title for the building, but 6 leases - one for each flat), or
* an even wider area of land (eg a single large freehold plot with 10 leasehold houses built on it)

Additionally as suggested above, the freehold may not be registered at the land registry. Compulsory registration was introduced gradually between around 1960 - 1990, but is only compulsory when a Title is either sold, transferred, or mortgaged. If someone has owned the freehold title since before these dates, and never mortgaged it, it will not be registered.

But it still exists.

Chanes

Thanks for the replies!

wantonnoodle

The other thing you may find is that, while the freehold may not show for a leasehold house (if the freehold and leasehold were created before the land registry started registering titles), it is possible that the freehold shows up on the land registry because the leaseholder has bought the freehold as a separate transaction to the freehold, and the 2 titles have not been combined yet. The house we are looking to buy is one of these - the vendor bought the leasehold in 2004, but didn't buy the freehold until 2012, which means there are 2 different documents on the land registry, but both in his name. I would expect, once the house is sold, both titles will be combined into one single title.

rtho782

There might be a building with 5 flats (leasehold) in it. In this case, the building would be the freehold, and there would be 5 flats with separate addresses.

Eg:

28 Any Street (Freehold)
28A Any Street (Leasehold)
..
28E Any Street (Leasehold)

You could also have a single building with a single leasehold. In this case you might see:

29 Other Street (Freehold)
29 Other Street (Leasehold).

Land_Registry

wantonnoodle wrote: »

The other thing you may find is that, while the freehold may not show for a leasehold house (if the freehold and leasehold were created before the land registry started registering titles), it is possible that the freehold shows up on the land registry because the leaseholder has bought the freehold as a separate transaction to the freehold, and the 2 titles have not been combined yet. The house we are looking to buy is one of these - the vendor bought the leasehold in 2004, but didn't buy the freehold until 2012, which means there are 2 different documents on the land registry, but both in his name. I would expect, once the house is sold, both titles will be combined into one single title.

All the posts are possibilities but i would probably bet on this one applying here.
If the same person buys the LH and FH but doesn't apply to merge the two into a single FH then you retain the two tenures/titles in the same ownership
Normally merger is applied for but not always and for a variety of reasons from deliberate (keeping options open) to an oversight when completing the conveyancing process
If you check your paperwork from when you bought then the register entries should give you a clue - have you got them?

Users of the Property Alert service should be aware that if there is a single FH and multiple LHs out of it then the service will reveal both tenures for each address so be wary. Some select FH for their flat and get an alert every time the FH is altered

Chanes

It's really kind of you all to explain this, I would never have guessed it was so tortured an item. I thought it had to be one or the other, I consider myself educated - ta!