Parking not registered with house

heppers7

Hi. I bought a 50% shared ownership property back in 2002 with a housing assoc. We have since gone on to buy out the remaining shares and now own the freehold to a 2 bed mid terrace House.  We are in a small close of 10 houses. We all pay service charge to the housing assoc who 'maintain' the close. I use the term loosely as they do very very little other than trim the bushes twice a year.  They have nothing else to do with anything to do with any of the properties in the close. 

Each house has a numbered parking bay allocated to their property. The bay for our property is not directly outside the house it is located in a mini car-park between houses on the corner of the close along with two other residents bays.  We are the in the middle of the three.  I am now selling the property and finally after months of delays were at the last knockings for exchanging.  The day before we were exchanging the buyers solicitor raised a query that the parking bay is not mentioned in the title deeds and therefore we do not own the bay and have zero rights to it.  I have to say it never crossed my mind that we did or didn't own. If we didn't then the housing assoc did as they maintain the close. Either way, it was there for our sole use and that is reflective across the close.  I've tried everything I can to find information on the ownership. Housing Assoc say they can see other houses have indeed got their own bays so mine should have been the same but it just wasn't for some reason. They can't find the original lease to prove that I had sole use of the bay, and basically have said 'sorry, cant help'.  It looks like, going back in history, the bay was not allocated officially to the previous shared ownership owners as there is no mention in my first round of title deeds.  It basically doesn't exist.  My solicitors are not very forth coming and obviously during the whole catastrophe that is corona are limiting the contact as much as as they can !! The buyers solicitors are picking over the bones of everything and now i've no where to turn to get this fixed.  The only thing i can find that may help is the original drawings/conveyancers plans for when the close was built which highlights my house and the bay allocated to us. The original numbering was different back then and they changed it at some point before folk moved in but it is clear.   I literally dont know what to do and cant get any one to call me back or answer an email.   For all these very experienced legal folk around me, nobody is giving me any solutions to the problem or how to move forward with the sale.  Can the bay be registrered by the new owners once they move in. They will certainly be in contact with the housing association for the service charge that is payable. is the land mine? is it housing assocs?  what do i do to fix this.  nobody is telling me anything? Or do i just pull out of the sale now and be done with it all. The stress of this has been just about unbearable.  

Ditzy_Mitzy

I'm not completely familiar with shared ownership, but understand that it's done on a leasehold basis. The owner, you, buys a long lease on the place in concert with the housing association which owns the other half of the leasehold interest. The HA is, presumably, also the freeholder. Under such a structure, the freeholder also owns the car park and the householder is given rights to park in one of the spaces under the lease. 
The complication here seems to be that you bought out the freeholder's share of the lease in the house only. The leasehold title, therefore, has ceased to exist. It sounds like an error was made at the point of purchasing the freehold, in that the HA did not, in addition to the house, make arrangements in regards to the parking space. The HA could, either, have sold you the freehold to it or drawn up a new lease for the parking space itself with some sort of notional ground rent. The buyer of your house, in either scenario, would then have rights to use the space. 
As it stands, therefore, it appears that the buyer of the property will get the freehold interest in the house but no rights to use the parking space other than by convention. The problem for the buyer is that he has no real recourse if someone else decides to start parking in the space at some point in future. 
I presume the house was marketed as coming with an allocated parking space? I'd also presume that the buyer might have leave to pull out of the transaction, if he cites the provision of the parking as instrumental in his decision to purchase. 
You'll have to take it up with the freeholder, whoever that may be. You could start with a Land Registry title search, which will at least get the ball rolling. 

eddddy

Are you saying that you don't have a copy of your original lease (from before you owned the freehold) either?

If the parking space wasn't included in the original lease, it sounds like you're at the mercy of the Housing Association. If they agree it was an oversight, they might grant you a new lease on the parking space at a low cost (or even no cost). But they probably wouldn't have to.

Could it be that the original leaseholder of your house knowingly bought it without parking - because it was cheaper that way?

robatwork

Sounds complex but you need to sort it out. Many years ago I had offered and accepted on a place and had to pull out as they couldn't establish ownership of the car space up the road they "said" was theirs. It was a deal breaker for me.

davidmcn

heppers7 said:

is the land mine? is it housing assocs?

We don't know because we've got even less information than you, but most likely scenario from what you've told us is that the housing association bought the development, haven't leased or sold the parking space to you or anybody else, so it's still the HA's.

We also don't know how big a deal the parking space is - worst case scenario is your buyer has to park somewhere else, though that seems unlikely if everybody thinks it's your house's space anyway.

greatcrested

You now own the freehlold?

You previouly owned a lease? (or 50% of a lease)?

And neither show the bay?

If you have done a 'map enquiry' at the Land Registry, who comes up as the registered owner of the bay? Almost certainly the HA, but check anyway.

If so, you need to get the HA to transfer ownership (either free or leasehold) of the bay to you (or to your buyer). This will take time. Your buyer might accept a letter from them saying they agree to do this, and may proceed with your sale based on that. Or they might not.

heppers7

I’ve just had a look but there’s no way to identify the area the bay is in. I can put the post code in but would have to give more detail than that. So can’t say for certain it’s still HA but I think it must be and they have the lease which could easily just be signed over to the new owners when they complete and transfer the property to their name. But I can’t seem to get anyone to confirm it. I think the buyers may accept it but their sols won’t. It’s be the most stressful disheartening process I’ve ever had to experience!  

greatcrested

Put in the postcode, then zoom in on the map. When you reach the required level of map size it will show all the Titles in that area. Select the one (or several) that appear to be closest, and download the Title Plans for it/each of them. That will identfy the precise area covered by that/those Title(s).

If the car bay falls within one of them, then download the Title for that Plan to identify registered the owner.

heppers7

You Sir/Madam/non-binary individual GreatCrested are a gem!!!!!!  What it has shown is that its owned by none of us!!! its owned by the man who owned the land previously before the houses were built.  I can now at least talk to him about it as he lives in the road behind and as he requested to keep the right of way when he sold the land to developers. 

heppers7

Well i thought it was going to solve it, but it hasn't..he only owns part of the land. Not where the bays are. Do we think this may cover it :  stated in the TP1.

davidmcn

Don't think your picture works.
It would seem a bit odd for the previous owner still to have title if the HA have built their car park on it.