Buying A House With A Unregistered Leasehold

Chouhdry

Guy opposite me lived in a property. He recently passed away and we were good friends, he told me he had no family therefore no next of kin.

I was interested in purchasing the house. I then found the freehold owners which were Chime Properties Ltd and i spoke to their agents CSJ Residential, they asked for a 5 figure sum to convert from the leasehold to freehold but first i had to buy it off the leasehold owner, they didnt know who it was and neither did i, so is their anyway i can find the leasehold owner?

I read on a thread that if the lease is longer than 7 years it has to be registered, but the guy that lived there had been there for over 30 years. I also read i could go to a solicitor and we could arugabely say that we tried to locate the leasehold owner and couldn’t.

Any advice or knowlege would be greatly appreciated.

Chouhdry

Just wanted to let people know that their is no mention of the lease in the freehold title, no record of a leasehold in the Land Registry. However the title has two properties and the other one says to have a lease and is highlighted in the title plan, but the property im interested in does not have a lease or is highlighted with a lease.

G_M

The leaseholder will be whoever inherits.

Did he die intestate (no will)? If so, answer the questions on this government site:

https://www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-will

If no relatives at all:

The whole estate goes to the Crown.

Next steps

Find out what happens to ownerless property

Land_Registry

Chouhdry if I have understood correctly there is a freehold title and the owner is acknowledging there is a lease, owned by the deceased, but which is not registered.

It can happen as the 7 year rule only came in with the LR Act 2002 so before that it was over 21 years for quite a while. I'm guessing the deceased bought an unregistered lease and as he wined it for so long it was never registered.

So two questions really - how long was his lease for and where are his deeds? And why, when the freehold was registered was no mention of the lease made and noted on it's registration.

Think you need to do some more digging. And I'm not too sure you can claim you couldn't find the Leasehold owner. After all he was your deceased friend.

Chouhdry

Is their anyway i can get into contact with the Crown and negotiate a deal for the house?
Also i think the lease is very close to ending as the freeholder did demand £30,000 to convert it from leasehold to freehold.

davidmcn

Chouhdry wrote: »

Is their anyway i can get into contact with the Crown and negotiate a deal for the house?

Have you made any efforts to find out whether he had any family (that includes distant or estranged relatives) or had perhaps made a Will?

Did he not have any other friends who might know better than you?

Chouhdry

I!!!8217;m 100% sure no one else would have known him better than me, he told me has no family and i!!!8217;m not sure if he made a will, he was in his 50!!!8217;s.

davidmcn

Chouhdry wrote: »

I'm 100% sure no one else would have known him better than me, he told me has no family and i'm not sure if he made a will, he was in his 50s.

By "no family" did he literally mean not even distant cousins etc?

Who organised the funeral? Who attended? Has anyone visited the house? Have you put a note through the door like I suggested on your other thread?

Watch some of Heir Hunters for an idea of the steps to be taken before the Crown gets their hands on the estate.

Chouhdry

Basically he passed away in his house, neighbours got worried because his lights and TV were running for weeks and he wasnt opening the door, Police came and broke in finding him deceased, body was taken by the Ambulance, not heard anything about a public funeral happening, i think the authorities got him buried

G_M

None of that means he did not leave a will. I wrote my first will aged 23 when I went travelling.

Nor does it mean there is not a distant relative - perhaps overseas.

As for contacting the crown - pointless. The crown will eventually sell, and do so to get the best price, not just sell to the first person to approach them. Keep an eye on estate agent adverts, and auctions.