Buying freehold from deceased overseas freeholder?

MonkeyDr

Hi,

Slightly unusual situation and I wonder if anyone has experience or can help?

I would like to buy the freehold for my leasehold flat, jointly with the ground floor flat leaseholder (only 2 flats in the property). We have both owned for 10y+.

Freeholder when I bought was an elderly woman in the USA. She has never asked for the ground rent (trivial amount anyway), and never done anything to do with maintenance or buildings insurance and so on. Hasn't replied to any communication since 2005. We did have a UK contact, and he occasionally replied, but only ever to say that he would pass things on.

Other leaseholder and I get on well and deal with issues together as and when they arise. Our leases are very long, but lack of contactable freeholder has caused issues when remortgaging, and may be problematic should be want to sell in the future (no immediate plans).

After years of no communication we have found out that the freeholder died in 2012. After some internet sleuthing we have managed to contact someone who we think is her son, who says he is NOK, but she died intestate and in the USA, where son also lives.

We have started the ball rolling to buy the freehold, and got a valuation etc. TBH, it's not worth much, but we would make him a more generous offer.

But our solicitor seems a bit stumped about what to do next, as the son has no proof of ownership. Land registry still lists the deceased woman, at my own address. We are trying to establish what the son would need to do to demonstrate that he is the heir and would satisfy UK legal system, but are a bit wary about running up huge costs disproportionate to the actual value. Son may also be unwilling to spend the time on it, which we would understand as he doesn't have a huge amount to gain.

Before we found the presumed son we were investigating the process of buying from "absentee freeholder". Does anyone know if we could still pursue this even in the eventuality that there may be an heir, albeit unproven?

I would really like to be able to say to the son that we will pay him £X for the freehold but it is up to him to demonstrate ownership in the first place, and if he can't / won't then we will go ahead and buy it anyway and he will not get the £X. Then he can make a sensible judgement about whether it is worth it to him or not.

Worst case would be writing a blank cheque for an expensive US lawyer...

Thanks in advance

davidmcn

The relevant legal system for property is the system where it is, not where the owner is, so it would be the normal probate procedure to go through and either he deals with the property as executor or he demonstrates that it's been transferred to him as a beneficiary by the executor. So the fact he's in the US needn't necessarily complicate matters on your side.

eddddy

The legislation is designed very much to favour the leaseholder. Essentially, the law gives you the right to buy your freehold (assuming you qualify) - whatever the circumstances surrounding the freeholder.

You just follow the statutory process.

In this case, you need to make reasonable attempts to contact the freeholder. If you can't find anybody who has proof that they are the freeholder, I'd guess that you follow the process for acquiring the freehold with an absentee freeholder.

The payment for the freehold will be paid to the court. If the son (or anyone else) can eventually prove that they owned the freehold, the court will then pay them the money.


Is your solicitor a specialist in freehold enfranchisement? If not, you might be better off finding a specialist.

G_M

What's NOK?

If she died intestate, then intestacy law defines who inherits. Presumably she had other assets and again presumaby, the son knows who inheritted those?

Children - if there is no surviving married or civil partner

If there is no surviving partner, the children of a person who has died without leaving a will inherit the whole estate. This applies however much the estate is worth. If there are two or more children, the estate will be divided equally between them.

MonkeyDr

Thank you all.

NOK = next of kin, and I guess one problem is that he will have to demonstrate that he definitely inherits (under his state law in US) to a level that satisfies in the U.K. I think that this was the only UK asset.

Same applies to the probate process - I suspect that this asset was missed, if probate was done. I don't know the process in the US.

Sounds like we will essentially ask him to prove it, and push on with the statutory process if he can't.

Thank you again.

davidmcn

MonkeyDr wrote: »

I guess one problem is that he will have to demonstrate that he definitely inherits (under his state law in US) to a level that satisfies in the U.K.

No, you don't need to worry about whether he's entitled to inherit the property. Either you buy from the executor(s) (and they give the cash to the beneficiary), or the executors transfer the property to the beneficiary and you buy from them. Whether the executors have passed the property to the correct beneficiary isn't your concern.

MonkeyDr

Thank you again Davidmcn.

However, please forgive me for being a bit dense; I don't quite understand:

Do you mean that there would have to be a U.K. executor? We don't think there are any / have no idea who they are or how to contact them.

The impression we have from the son is that it was all very simple and he just inherited all his mother's things, but no-one thought about this single UK asset, so nothing has happened about it.

We also suspect that if the family would need to get fresh executors etc then the hassle to them wouldn't be worth it for the value of the freehold, and if I were him in those circumstances I would just ignore it all.

davidmcn

MonkeyDr wrote: »

Do you mean that there would have to be a U.K. executor?

The executor doesn't need to be in the UK, but somebody needs to apply for probate as the executor. If she died intestate, with no surviving spouse or other children, it seems highly likely that the son is entitled to become the executor and to inherit. But he can't do anything with the property before he gets probate.

martindow

davidmcn wrote: »

The executor doesn't need to be in the UK, but somebody needs to apply for probate as the executor. If she died intestate, with no surviving spouse or other children, it seems highly likely that the son is entitled to become the executor and to inherit. But he can't do anything with the property before he gets probate.

The person who has died was an American living in the US at the time so I think eddddy's advice applies. The fact that an overseas asset has not been properly dealt with by the American family is not really relevant.

davidmcn

martindow wrote: »

The person who has died was an American living in the US at the time so I think eddddy's advice applies. The fact that an overseas asset has not been properly dealt with by the American family is not really relevant.

Yes, I was really just talking about what's needed for any dealings with the freehold - if all you currently have is a bloke in America who claims to have inherited it (but hasn't actually done anything about it) then I think you can treat it as an absent freeholder.

MonkeyDr

Thank you all.

Unfortunately we pretty much do just have an overseas bloke who claims to have inherited it but seems to be without proof. FWIW he's offered identity documents and so forth, so we do think he is who he says he is, but nothing that deals with probate.

I think we will let him know what the freehold valuation is (er, £300, so easily could get dwarfed by legal fees for him to deal properly with the estate) and leave it up to him to decide if it's worth his while to sort out or not. And we will push on with the statutory process for buying the freehold.

Appreciate the point eddddy about needing a solicitor with appropriate experience; she was a recommendation from someone else who used her to buy his freehold, but I think that was quite straightforward. We'll look into it.

MD