Responsibilities of a freeholder?

Ifiwerearichman2

Hello I'm hoping someone can help me. I am the freeholder of two maisonettes. I used to occupy one but then sold it. I have two leaseholders - one for the ground floor flat and one for the first floor flat. The leaseholder of the ground floor has contacted me to report ivy growing over from the house next door and starting to get under the roof tiles as well as into their garden. They want me to approach the people next door officially.

What are my responsibilities as the freeholder and what should I do? My understanding is that the leaseholder effectively owns the property so they should deal with it. I do appreciate that they didn't need to inform me, however because I used to live there they have tended to want me to do everything in the past. But I no longer live locally and I don't know the neighbours anymore.

Thank you in advance for your advice.

eddddy

Ifiwerearichman2 wrote: »

What are my responsibilities as the freeholder and what should I do?

Your responsibilities will be whatever it says in the leases.

Does the lease say that the freeholder or the leaseholder(s) are responsible for maintenance of the building? (With flats, it's usually the freeholder. But with maisonettes, it's not always the case.)

If you're responsible for building maintenance, you could write a letter to the neighbour. The leases would probably allow you to charge a 'reasonable' fee for your time etc - as long as you follow the rules for requesting payment etc.

00ec25

as above, you as freeholder own the building. It is in your long term interest to ensure the building is not damaged whether you regard the leaseholder responsible in this case or not

the leaseholders rent the building from you under whatever conditions you imposed when you sold them the lease. Time to look at your lease.

francescotusa

Hello all,

I have just found this post and I wanted to ask an additional question related to the responsibilities of a freeholder.

We recently bought the lease for a flat in a big new development in London. When we agreed to buy the flat, we did not have any concerns about the security of the whole development as we knew that there was a 24 hours concierge, CCTV, etc.

Unfortunately there has recently been an incident – some unknown people managed to get access to the development and steal a considerable number of bikes from the bike store.

Whilst the main entrance is controlled by the (24 hours) concierge, there are at least other 3 entrance doors (in other parts of the development) that are not (although access is granted via fob). One in particular is very close to a busy supermarket and can potentially be used to easily gain access to the development tailgating people that enter / exit from it.

The question is, should the freeholder, i.e., our Landlord be in charge of granting security to us – leaseholders leaving in the development – and taking all the required measures for doing that (e.g., installing additional CCTV cameras, more effective access systems, etc.)?

Any advise on this is very welcome!

Thanks a lot,
Francesco

HampshireH

Franceaco. They could consult on it. However your neighbours may not wish to pay for additional upgrades amd may feel the current system is suffice.

People need to take ownership by not allowing randoms to tailgate them etc.

A bike store would usually have a seperate lock and then the ability for each bike internally to be locked down to a bolted post within the lock up. These should also be utilised.

I have found that most security breaches tend to be as a result of residents failing to be aware of their surroundings and offering an entry i.e. not shutting doors properly (not that its an excuse) did they bust the lock on this occasion?.

No reason why you cannot ask your freeholder. Do you have a management company you could approach or residents association?

davidmcn

francescotusa wrote: »

The question is, should the freeholder, i.e., our Landlord be in charge of granting security to us – leaseholders leaving in the development – and taking all the required measures for doing that (e.g., installing additional CCTV cameras, more effective access systems, etc.)?

If you mean is it their role to manage whatever the communal security arrangements are, then almost certainly yes. That doesn't mean they have a duty to increase security, though I'm sure they'd be happy to take more money from the leaseholders in order to install additional equipment.

G_M

davidmcn wrote: »

If you mean is it their role to manage whatever the communal security arrangements are, then almost certainly yes. That doesn't mean they have a duty to increase security, though I'm sure they'd be happy to take more money from the leaseholders in order to install additional equipment.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

francescotusa

Thanks all for the reply.

We do not yet have a resident association but, according to the opinions coming from our shared social media group, there's an increasing consensus about the lack of security.

Also, when many of us agreed to buy our flats, we were not explicitly informed of the additional access entrances to the development – we thought the development was very secure as the only way to get in was via the entrance where the concierge is located.

I am not blaming our developer / freeholder as whilst they did not explicitly mentioned this, looking at their brochures the 3 additional entrances are actually marked on the maps.

I guess the best thing to do is asking for a consultation and raise the issue all together – maybe they will help to find a solution without charging additional money if they understand there a design fault, broken security systems, or similar?