Flying freehold issues

JOSH1990

Hi,
Im in the process of buying a property which is now in the hands of the solicitors. It has been brought to my attention that the property has a flying freehold. This is caused by a first floor bedroom of the property I'm buying covering the entire shared passageway below. Ive been reading into flying freeholds and it does seem to be a grey area which is reviewed case by case as to wether or not its likely these properties can be mortgaged. Although a flying freehold is not uncommon, so i suspect in most cases i would find a company willing to lend on it but there appears to be an issue with the title plan which is making this a little more of an out of the ordinary situation.  The title plan is only outlines half way into the shared passage way, so based on the plan it appears as if the neighbour should own half of the bedroom which is above the passage way but this is not the case. Im wondering if anyone has experienced an issue like this before, a few options i have seen is writing to land registry to see if this plan is inaccurate and can be amended, taking out an indemnity insurance plan or turning the room above the passage way into leasehold which seems a very long process. I also wonder wether this is actually the only way that this could have been outlined on the plan at ground level to show that the passage way is owned 50/50 with each property and does not take into consideration ownership of anything on the first floors. If anyone has any advice from experience this would be greatly appreciated as my main concerns would be refinancing/ selling the property in the future.
Thanks in advance, Josh.

zagubov

JOSH1990 said:

Hi,
Im in the process of buying a property which is now in the hands of the solicitors. It has been brought to my attention that the property has a flying freehold. This is caused by a first floor bedroom of the property I'm buying covering the entire shared passageway below.

Ive been reading into flying freeholds and it does seem to be a grey area which is reviewed case by case as to wether or not its likely these properties can be mortgaged.

Although a flying freehold is not uncommon, so i suspect in most cases i would find a company willing to lend on it but there appears to be an issue with the title plan which is making this a little more of an out of the ordinary situation.  

The title plan is only outlines half way into the shared passage way, so based on the plan it appears as if the neighbour should own half of the bedroom which is above the passage way but this is not the case.

Im wondering if anyone has experienced an issue like this before, a few options i have seen is writing to land registry to see if this plan is inaccurate and can be amended, taking out an indemnity insurance plan or turning the room above the passage way into leasehold which seems a very long process.

I also wonder whether this is actually the only way that this could have been outlined on the plan at ground level to show that the passage way is owned 50/50 with each property and does not take into consideration ownership of anything on the first floors.

If anyone has any advice from experience this would be greatly appreciated as my main concerns would be refinancing/ selling the property in the future.

Thanks in advance, Josh.

Just breaking up the block of text to encourage readers and posters to reply with advice

greatcrested

That's exactly the issue with Flying Freeholds!

On one level one party owns the land, on the level above a different party owns. In this case the area of the FF is half the width of the passage, since you will own the passage at ground level up to the mid-point + the room above to that point, but your neighbour will own the remainder of the passage's width with the remainder of the room above being your FF.

Ideally in cases like this there would be an associated Deed that would specify rights and responsibilities of each party eg for maintenance.

For mortgage purposes, different lenders have different attitudes. Some will never lend. Some willlend provided the FF isless than a certain % of the overall property size (eg 10 or 20%), and some will review case by case.

Your independant mortgage broker will advise.

https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/0-503-5985?contextData=(sc.Default)&transitionType=Default&firstPage=true