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Sole access roof terrace - seeking demise

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  • I suppose there is nothing legally stopping the joint freeholders from either asking for a crazy amount of money or saying an outright 'no'? They aren't actually obliged to be reasonable?
  • da_rule
    da_rule Posts: 3,618 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 1,000 Posts
    I suppose there is nothing legally stopping the joint freeholders from either asking for a crazy amount of money or saying an outright 'no'? They aren't actually obliged to be reasonable?

    No they are not, not when it comes to matters such as these.

    Is there some sort of agreement in place whereby you only need a majority of the freeholders to agree etc or can one dissenting freeholder stop the whole lot? If there is an agreement for some form of majority rule then sweet talking 12 of them (you will be the 13th) may be your best bet.
  • thelem
    thelem Posts: 774 Forumite
    Are there any leaseholders who will be disadvantaged by this work? e.g. ones whose property is overlooked by the roof terrace, which will presumably be used more frequently once the work has been completed.
    Note: Unless otherwise stated, my property related posts refer to England & Wales. Please make sure you state if you are discussing Scotland or elsewhere as laws differ.
  • eddddy
    eddddy Posts: 18,002 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    I suppose there is nothing legally stopping the joint freeholders from either asking for a crazy amount of money or saying an outright 'no'? They aren't actually obliged to be reasonable?

    Nope - they're not obliged to be reasonable.

    I guess one possible negotiating strategy is to present it to the joint freeholders like this...
    "If you agree to let me build the room - I'll be paying you each, say, £500 of free money. You don't have to do anything for it.

    If you don't agree to let me build the room you won't get anything."


    But if they're a bit feisty, they might say back...
    If we agree to let you build the room, you'll increase the value of your property by, say, £30k. (i.e. You get an instant profit of £30k)

    If we don't agree, you'll get nothing - no profit. So we want you to share out a big chunk of that £30k windfall that we're giving you.
  • camptownraces
    camptownraces Posts: 333 Forumite
    1 Get plans drawn up
    2 Submit for planning permission
    3 If planning permission is granted, some time after that you can submit your plans to building control

    None of the shareholders in the freehold company is going to consent to anything unless they can actually see the plans. And it's all pointless if local planning people will not consent.
  • 1 Get plans drawn up
    2 Submit for planning permission
    3 If planning permission is granted, some time after that you can submit your plans to building control

    None of the shareholders in the freehold company is going to consent to anything unless they can actually see the plans. And it's all pointless if local planning people will not consent.

    The only thing about this plan is, the minute you submit planning application, doesn't a letter go out to all the freeholders about the proposal? If they suddenly get one of those through the door it will definitely put a few of them on the back foot.

    The £500 idea might just work... but if they start asking for a bigger chunk of the overall profit that could also fall down (we need some money to actually build it too).

    Thanks to everyone for your help, I really appreciate it!
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