Flying freehold?

housemovehelp

Saw a lovely Victorian terrace for sale but it’s stating that  part of it is on a flying freehold. I’ve never heard of this but I presume it’s the bit where part of the house is above an entrance way to a rear courtyard. 
anyone had any experience of buying or selling a house with flying freehold?

princeofpounds

No experience directly but it comes up on the board here frequently. 

Mortgage lenders have criteria for flying freeholds. A lot will refuse to lend. A lot will lend, but only if the area under consideration is small (IIRC 10 or 15% of the floor area is quite common) and/or if there are covenants in place with the creeping freehold (i.e. underneath) to provide mutual maintenance.

Obviously you take the risk of policies changing in future, but my guess is that they won't change much for smaller issues like this, which aren't as uncommon as more significant flying freeholds are.

The CML handbook has a table that discusses each lender's approach to the issue. A good mortgage broker can help you navigate but it should be available online.

greatcrested

Some lenders refuse to lend on these

Some will lend provided the FF is less than X% of the total area (eg 10%, 20%)

The legalissue is the question of responsibility /repairs. If the owner of the freehold below your (bedroom whatever) lets it fall into disrepair, your bedroom could end up in the alleyway......

Conversely if you ignore maitenance and your roof leaks, the water could start falling into the alley. Not such an issue with an alley but if it was someone's sitting room beneath yours....

So ideally there should be a Ded in place specifying who does what maintenance and giving each party rights to enforce maintenance on the other.