Freehold house and detached leasehold garage

PIWIFB

Hi
My wife and I have placed an offer on a 3 bed detached house with a detached garage. the garage is in a row of 3 which has a coachhouse over the top. the external left garage is ours and the wall also forms part of our freehold boundary. there was no mention of the garage being leasehold from the EA. There is already electric in the garage which is fed from the house we are buying and was put in prior to the latest occupants so pre 2015. where do i stand in A changing the electric within the garage, B placing an external door from the garage to our garden. i have been told that the current occupants do not pay any monies at all to the freeholder of the coach house. I have yet to see a copy of the lease. I also dont know if the electric was put in with permission of the freeholder. any advise would be gratefull. TIA

franklee

PIWIFB said:

Hi
My wife and I have placed an offer on a 3 bed detached house with a detached garage. the garage is in a row of 3 which has a coachhouse over the top. the external left garage is ours and the wall also forms part of our freehold boundary. there was no mention of the garage being leasehold from the EA. There is already electric in the garage which is fed from the house we are buying and was put in prior to the latest occupants so pre 2015. where do i stand in A changing the electric within the garage, B placing an external door from the garage to our garden. i have been told that the current occupants do not pay any monies at all to the freeholder of the coach house. I have yet to see a copy of the lease. I also dont know if the electric was put in with permission of the freeholder. any advise would be gratefull. TIA

What change do you want to make to the electric? Is the supply legit or just an extension cable from the house?

Of course you  will be bound by the lease so need to know what it says.

If it's a newish build it may be electricity isn't supposed to be supplied in the garage. I didn't even have a garage light as it wasn't permitted so used a torch on dark winter nights. Presumably electricity was deemed a fire and noise risk to the coach house.

In my case the freeholder (coach house house owner) was responsible for buildings insurance. The leaseholders were supposed to contrite a share but weren't asked to probably as it wasn't much. Might be awkward if the freeholder didn't get any insurance though.

Have you had a chat to the coach house owner and other garage leaseholders (if any).

eddddy

I think it's unlikely that the garage lease will allow you to cut a hole in the freeholder's wall to create a door.

But if it does, at the very least, you would need the freeholder's consent. And any sensible freeholder would want to employ a surveyor/engineer to ensure that your builders properly support the wall whilst cutting a hole in it, use the correct lintel over the door, match the brickwork etc. And you would have to cover the all the freeholder's costs.

And if the new door means a new lease plan needs to be created and the lease varied, that could add well over £1000 to your costs.

AdrianC

PIWIFB said:

My wife and I have placed an offer on a 3 bed detached house with a detached garage. the garage is in a row of 3 which has a coachhouse over the top. the external left garage is ours and the wall also forms part of our freehold boundary. there was no mention of the garage being leasehold from the EA. There is already electric in the garage which is fed from the house we are buying and was put in prior to the latest occupants so pre 2015. where do i stand in A changing the electric within the garage, B placing an external door from the garage to our garden. i have been told that the current occupants do not pay any monies at all to the freeholder of the coach house. I have yet to see a copy of the lease. I also dont know if the electric was put in with permission of the freeholder. any advise would be gratefull. TIA

Of course the garage is lease - it's not on land you own freehold, and you do not (cannot) own the entire building...

To add a door to the exterior wall would certainly need the freeholder's permission. The freeholder is likely to be the coachhouse owner, but may be the estate management.

When you say "change the electric within the garage", what do you mean? Yes, there may have been a breach by supplying electricity in the first place. But I can't see any great issue in you extending/reworking the installation within the garage itself, adding a CU/lights/sockets.

bucksbloke

Quite often coach houses (in in builders terms a FOG - Flat over garage) is often sold freehold to the owner of the coach house, although some builders will sell leasehold. The freeholder (whether the management company of the FOG owner) then have a lease with each of the properties with a garage. 

Any changes need permission from the freeholder and may also need planning permission (as it is common to suspend permitted development rights by restrictive covenant on new build estates). 

AnotherJoe

I once owned a house with a separate garage in a block. Nightmare. Never. Again.

People parking in front of block, leaking roof but not all owners wanted to pay, making it difficult to fix my bit.

AnotherJoe

AdrianC said:

PIWIFB said:

My wife and I have placed an offer on a 3 bed detached house with a detached garage. the garage is in a row of 3 which has a coachhouse over the top. the external left garage is ours and the wall also forms part of our freehold boundary. there was no mention of the garage being leasehold from the EA. There is already electric in the garage which is fed from the house we are buying and was put in prior to the latest occupants so pre 2015. where do i stand in A changing the electric within the garage, B placing an external door from the garage to our garden. i have been told that the current occupants do not pay any monies at all to the freeholder of the coach house. I have yet to see a copy of the lease. I also dont know if the electric was put in with permission of the freeholder. any advise would be gratefull. TIA

Of course the garage is lease - it's not on land you own freehold, and you do not (cannot) own the entire building...

To add a door to the exterior wall would certainly need the freeholder's permission. The freeholder is likely to be the coachhouse owner, but may be the estate management.

When you say "change the electric within the garage", what do you mean? Yes, there may have been a breach by supplying electricity in the first place. But I can't see any great issue in you extending/reworking the installation within the garage itself, adding a CU/lights/sockets.

One potential scenario would be to put in a bigger cable to take an EV charger or even just a better socket for a low speed charger.  Something that was put in years back to run say a lightbulb and a power drill almost certainly wont be up to the task (or regs) of running a high amperage for several hours. Plus theres the issue of fixing an EV charger to something thats not OPs property. If he was told to remove it that would be a nightmare regards charging his car.

If that was behind the question of course.

PJBRFC

We had this at our old house which was a new build in 2014.

The coach house was also leasehold and the freeholder was the estate management company. They covered costs for buildings insurance and we paid for it as part of the estate management charge. God I'm glad to be away from all of that.

As for the electrics it was part of our lease that we couldn't run any electricity into the garage, and we could only use it for storage of a vehicle. 
I would say the chances of you being able to build a door into your garage is about 0.0001%. 

Jeepers_Creepers

Lots of (reasonable) restrictions are usually imposed on such leasehold garages with a flat above; eg. no stored fuel at all (not even a gallon tank for a lawnmower), often no electricity, often other restrictions such as what you can actually do in your 'own' garage - possibly no power tools or anything that could be deemed to cause a noise or smell nuisance. There may be problems if you were hoping to renovate a classic car in there, for example...

The garage is essentially to be used for the storage of a car, and probably other non-hazardous items like furniture. 

As said above, it depends what you mean by 'changing' the electrics. If it's a case up updating the wiring to make it safer or neater, and the actual use would continue to be for convenience such as for lighting or a freezer, then that is likely something you can just 'get away' with doing. But if you were planning to, say, use power tools in there, that could very well not only be a breach of the lease but also bring that breach to the annoyed attention of the leaseholder. If the lease says ' no electricity', then forget fitting an electric garage door, 'cos that would be a bit obvious. Of course, if the lease says 'no electricity', then you now know this to be the case, so would know you'd be trying to 'get away' with it... 

Bottom line is, you need to read that lease, and then make a judgement on what you are likely to 'get away' with, and what you are not. The leaseholder would be very kind to allow you to put a door through the wall - unless it was maybe something they were considering themselves for their own garden. And, as also said above, this might entail changes to the terms of the lease, and possibly even the insurance. 

On the issue of insurance, I'm trying to remember how this was sorted - my sis almost bought a 'coach house' like this at one time. I think the responsibility for the insurance lands on the C-H owner, so if they were to neglect this and the whole thing burned down, they'd be personally liable for all the damage caused. 

But, the lease will explain it all. :-)