Garage repairs, who is liable from freehold/leasehold perspective?

dweldy

I live in a small block of flats which has a block of garages out the back, with mine being the end one on a row of 5.
The garage (and block generally) is fairly old and has not been very well maintained. I rarely use my garage so haven't really touched it in a few years. As I am starting to think about moving down the line, I am going through and seeing what work may need to be done before then.
Looking at the garage, the end wall is actually leaning slightly away and clearly needs some repairs. A section of the flat roof also got blown up in storms this year (the black covering area, not the whole roof structure itself), mostly on my garage but also some of the one adjacent to it. The wooden back where guttering should be, along with the guttering itself is also in a state along the whole block. There's probably more things as well.

What I'm trying to establish is, who is liable for any repairs, based on the freehold/leasehold owners?
From looking at my land registry documents, both my flat and the garage are described in my name on the leasehold in the same document.
The freehold is owned by what I believe is a foreign company, and I have the land registry showing this where it describes every flat and garage on the land as being owned by them under the freehold title.

I also have managing agents for the block who I pay fees to every month who do cleaning and things like that, but never too much in the way of repairs that I've seen in my time here. A document I have from them dated 2015 also describes another company as being the agents for the 'Landlord' (the freeholders), and in this document it describes ground rent being collected by the Landlords agent, but the maintenance of the building by the managing agents.

It seems like they would be liable for the repairs to the garage wall and roof, but I am not fully sure how things work with freehold and leasehold type things, so wanted to try and see if anyone could confirm my thoughts or offer advice. I did do a quick look around online but didn't see anything obvious that seemed to answer my question.

Sorry for the long winded explanation, figured I'd provide as much info as possible!

princeofpounds

On mobile, so forgive short response. 

Short version - read your lease! It will define responsibilities. Visit lease-advice.org to learn all about how the system works.

Some more detail:

- garages can be demised to leaseholder or allocated as a service by the freeholder to the leaseholders. So situations can vary.
- having said that, structural work is very commonly for the freeholder.
- the freeholder is your landlord. The managing agents are his representative, so you would ask them to repair it once you know what you’re doing.
- a freeholder can have different agents collecting ground rent and collecting service charges/managing the block, so don’t worry about that.

dweldy

Thanks so much for your response! I will definitely check out that link.
It does seem like everything points to the freeholder being responsible, but the land registry docs can be a bit tough to read sometimes, they seem to be worked just to confuse people I swear

NameUnavailable

In most cases anything to do with the buildings/grounds are the responsibility of the freeholder. The management company should arrange for any works necessary to be carried out and then the costs will be billed back to your and the other leasheholders under the service charge. It may be that there are enough funds to cover the work or you might have to pay additional/higher charges to cover it. If it is above a certain amount they have to go through a formal process to notify you all of the works and costs etc.

The lease will confirm whose responsibility the work is so check that first.

greatcrested

You needto read your lease.

That is the document that defines who is responsible for what.

Then if it is the freeholder, you need to establish clearly

* who the freeholder is(the 'foreign company'

* who acts as their agents for repairs (probably the company that collects service charges from you)

What is the 2015 document? And who do you pay ground rent to? Does not seem to be the campany you pay service charges to, correct?

dweldy

Thanks for the feedback. Ground rent and service charges go to different places yes, and the 2015 document is from the management company and I looks to show they are responsible for building maintenance. It doesn't directly reference the garage in it, however the freehold and leasehold documents do, so once I've gone through them all full, I will likely contact them to open some discussions.
Thanks for the responses