leasehold house purchase - breach of covenant?

78daniel

hi, i am in process of purchasing a leasehold house and am requesting seller to apply for freehold , so i dont have 2 year wait.
seller had an extention built , but could not contact freeholder as address was unavailable (duke of norfolk), however, they say that deed is in old english and unreadable as is hand written and faded. some parts  of it are typed, but cannot find any part which says that permission has to be obtained prior for any extensions etc.
also , there are no contact details on deeds for the freeholder
about 110 years left on lease, so i want to purchase freehold before it gets to 80 years. lease was originally for aabout 200 years.
if anyone has managed to purchase freehold from duke of norfolk, i would be really grateful for any help and advice to pass onto seller 
e.g. contact details
time scale
costs etc

seller has contacted solicitor about this but has been told to contact freeholder first and request to purchase freehold, and then if they are willing to sell, solictior will help with it.

greatcrested

https://members.parliament.uk/member/2194/contact

https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/6009948/carlton-towers-yorkshire-country-house-lord-lady-fitzalan-howard/

https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/international-year-book-and-statesmens-who-s-who/norfolk-18th-duke-of-edward-william-fitzalan-howard-SIM_person_26237

Duke Edward is the Earl Marshall of England and married Georgina Gore in 1987, they live at Arundel in Sussex and have 5 children.

https://dukesofnorfolk.co.uk/

princeofpounds

Anyone who owns a leasehold house (subject to a few criteria almost everyone passes) can force the purchase of the freehold through the statutory enfranchisement process. However, they can also conduct an informal, negotiated purchase of the freehold and most freeholders would agree because they know it can end up being forced in tribunal. Although they often ask for a cheeky price first, hoping that the buyer doesn't know the statutory process which specifies a valuation method.

There are three basic choices here:
1) Seller negotiates purchase of freehold and sells it to you as part of the process.
2) Seller starts statutory process and assigns it to you, you then complete the process with the tribunal
3) Seller does nothing, you either negotiate to buy or you live there for two years and then start the statutory process yourself.

The main issue is the division of work and the timing the various methods take. 

Read the material at lease-advice.org to understand how it all works. The cost depends totally on the value of the property, the length of the lease and any escalation clauses. Contact details - I don't know. What does the land registry entry say? Timescale? Anything from 2-4 months for a negotiated sale maybe, who knows how long the tribunals are taking given Covid? A year at a guess?

Splatfoot

greatcrested said:

https://members.parliament.uk/member/2194/contact

https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/6009948/carlton-towers-yorkshire-country-house-lord-lady-fitzalan-howard/

https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/international-year-book-and-statesmens-who-s-who/norfolk-18th-duke-of-edward-william-fitzalan-howard-SIM_person_26237

Duke Edward is the Earl Marshall of England and married Georgina Gore in 1987, they live at Arundel in Sussex and have 5 children.

https://dukesofnorfolk.co.uk/

At Arundel Castle I believe. 

78daniel

thanks to everyone for quick response, 
hopefully will be able to take this further, just concerned about the extension that was built , hoping the freeholder will not decide to be awkaward about this and cause any delays as i am hoping to complete before stamp duty kicks in again

78daniel

also, dont want to have risk of forfeiture due to extension

Buster2

Sorry to butt in but I was wondering if anyone could advise whether the process to assign a lease purchase to someone else is straight forward? We started the purchase but have since decided to sell our property. We’ve accepted an offer on our property but ideally would like to transfer this process to the new buyers, should they want to continue. Otherwise we’d just cancel the process and they’d have to start again in 2 years. 

Thanks in advance. 

Slithery

Buster2 said:

Sorry to butt in but I was wondering if anyone could advise whether the process to assign a lease purchase to someone else is straight forward? We started the purchase but have since decided to sell our property. We’ve accepted an offer on our property but ideally would like to transfer this process to the new buyers, should they want to continue. Otherwise we’d just cancel the process and they’d have to start again in 2 years. 

Thanks in advance. 

Please start your own thread, it stops the answers becoming confusing.

78daniel

update, seller has made enquiries and apparently d of n are not freeholders any more , was bought by company called CEFN estates  many years ago.  seller wants me to take up purchase of freehold either now after he has made a request to CEFN or to wait for 2 years to request myself.
If anyone has had any dealings as to purchase of freehold from CEFN then please let me know if they are easy to deal with or not.
I have googled the company , but there are no details regarding purchase of freehold from them
thanks

AdrianC

Cefn Estates Ltd are a dormant company in North Wales, registered in 2007.
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/06431039/filing-history

Given that the Duke of Norfolk has control in several residential property portfolios, I think you need to do a bit more digging.
https://members.parliament.uk/member/2194/registeredinterests

BTW, you do realise that the Duke of Norfolk is a person, not some company?

78daniel

I have clicked on your first link , 
on the filing history , it does state dormant company although there was a director on the 7/11/2019
on the overview, shows as an active company in London
the company no. for both are the same.
vendor has been told by his solicitor the agents for d of n have give him details of sale to CEFN