Sole access roof terrace - seeking demise

purposebuilt

I live in a purpose built flat block with sole access to a roof terrace. I would like to build a modern glass-box style room on the terrace. The roof terrace is one floor below the top of the building. As there is a high wall either side, it would not change the silhouette of the building, the glass box being below those wall heights. I have a share of the freehold but the leasehold for the building states that I only have sole access to the terrace, and not the demise. How difficult is it to change this in order to be able to seek approval for this build to go ahead?

eddddy

It's just a straightforward legal process to get the leaseplan (and lease) varied.

But it sounds like the roof terrace currently 'belongs' to the freeholders, although you have sole access to it.

Most freeholders would expect you to 'buy' the roof-terrace from them, so that it can be incorporated into your lease.

And most freeholders would negotiate the price according to value added. e.g. If the extra room adds £30k to the value of your flat, a fair price for the freeholder to charge might be £15k (i.e. 50%).

But with joint freeholders (i.e. share of freehold), it can sometimes be very difficult to predict how your joint freeholders (i.e. neighbours) will react to a request like this....

...they might ask for a stupid amount of money, they might ask for nothing, or they might flatly refuse. (Or they might be unable to agree between themselves.)

purposebuilt

Hi eddddy,

Thanks for the reply. We are more than happy to pay a fair price for the terrace although we know there is a good chance that with so many people involved, chances are nothing will be easily agreed upon. Flat refusal is also possible but we are hoping that as this would actually save them from a fair amount of roof and pointing maintenance, plus add to their funds for common parts work, that they could also see the benefits too.

eddddy

purposebuilt wrote: »

....plus add to their funds for common parts work...

When a freeholder sells part of their property, the money would normally go into straight into the freeholder's pocket.

And the leaseholders continue to pay for repairs to the common parts.


In this case the leaseholders and freeholders are the same people - so it's almost the same thing. (But there are some subtle differences - e.g. If somebody is about to sell their flat, they might prefer to have the money in their pocket, rather than in a central fund.)

G_M

How many flats/leases/joint freeholders?

purposebuilt

25 in total

G_M

purposebuilt wrote: »

25 in total

Hmmm... Good luck reaching agreement......

da_rule

It is also potentially not that straightforward. Adding to the demise is treated by the Land Registry as a grant of a new lease thus generating a new title number and closing the old one down (determining it). This could be a problem if you have a mortgage (or any other secured loans) as the lender will need to agree to substitute their security to the new title.

da_rule

One way around the above may be to get a new lease for the roof terrace only rather than trying to add it to your current lease. They can then make sure that the maintenance contributions are correct etc.

You can link it to the current lease by including a clause that it cannot be transferred independently, so you do not end up with the stupid situation where the flat and terrace are owned by different people.

purposebuilt

Thank you guys, this is all really useful stuff. Looks like a property lawyer might be a good first stop...!

eddddy

purposebuilt wrote: »

Thank you guys, this is all really useful stuff. Looks like a property lawyer might be a good first stop...!

No - I wouldn't say so.

It's pointless paying a solicitor, if your joint freeholders are just going to say "no", or ask for silly money - like £100k.

I'd say that the first step is to get an agreement in principle and price from your joint freeholders.

I think the legal stuff will be easy in comparison.