Buying flat leasehold with share of freehold

shhh90

My husband and I are in the process of buying a beautiful flat. It’s a leasehold property but we will be getting a share of freehold as part of that.

We put our offer in back in October, however we are still waiting for the management company (who own the block of flats) to answer our enquiries which includes detail on the monthly ground rent, audited accounts from the last three years (so we aren’t caught out by a surprise charge if the previous owners didn’t pay enough) and also insurance/building details of some underpinning on a flat in a different block - details in my opinion they should have already!!

My husband and I are getting quite frustrated as you can imagine. We’ve been chasing these particular enquiries for 3 months. There has been a lot of back and forth on things, not helping by the fact that the management company was uncontactable during December as a family member passed away.

We have been chasing the estate agent almost everyday to chase the management company, and we thought they were chasing the sellers as well (but it turns out they didn’t know any of this and thought we were about to exchange). I assume as the sellers now know, they will also be chasing the management company, but I don’t want to get my hopes up after all the ups and downs we have had so far.

Any advice? I want to call up the management company myself, but not sure if I’m in a legal right to do that? Otherwise it just feels like there is nothing we can do.

To add to all of this stress, we have been staying at my mother in laws during this whole process and we are very unhappy about it.

Any advice would be welcome!

Tom99

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Have you spoken to the vendors directly? Presumably they are also getting fed up with their landlord's non response.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]What is the unexpired term of the lease, just because you are getting a share of the freehold does not mean you can just ignore a shorter lease.[/FONT]

Tiglet2

There isn't much you can do to hurry along the replies to management enquiries unfortunately.

It is the sellers and seller's responsibility to pay for and provide the replies, by either paying for a full management pack (which includes the 3 years of accounts, buildings insurance, fire risk assessment, asbestos report, Memorandum & Articles etc etc) and/or replies to the form LPE1. You and your solicitor cannot approach the management company directly - you are not their client.

If you have contact with the vendor, you could go directly to them and find out if and when they paid for such a pack and maybe suggest the vendor contacts the management company to stress how important it is that they respond promptly.

Tiglet2

Also, are you getting a share in the freehold title or 1 share in the management company that manages the freehold?

eddddy

Do you mean that a jointly owned company owns the freehold, and they essentially 'self manage' the block?

Or a jointly owned company owns the freehold, and they have instructed a professional management company to manage the block?

A 'share of freehold' arrangement can have advantages - but in some cases it can mean that 'a bunch of amateurs' try to 'self-manage' a block, and don't do things like keep proper accounts.

If a professional management company is involved, you can try chasing them - but they might refuse to have any contact with you, as they have no business relationship with you.

The best solution is usually to chase the vendor.

NeilCr

eddddy wrote: »

The best solution is usually to chase the vendor.

Yes.

It could be that the residents own the freehold and employ a management company.

In which case it is likely that there are residents who are directors. Your vendor could contact one of these and ask them to put pressure on the management company.

I am a director of our estate and have done this in the past.