Freehold garage with no right of use

Tig13

I am in the process of buying a house.  One of the bedrooms goes above two garages, I was led to believe that one was owned by the house I wish to buy and the other by one of the neighbouring houses. My conveyancer has looked into the deeds and it shows that both garages will be owned by the house I wish to buy but it is written that with one of them there is no right of use (as it is the one I believed to be owned by someone else), so essentially I will own a garage that I have no right over. His concern is that normally these situations are leasehold so there would be some protection for me regarding what could be stored in there and also he is concerned how insurers will view this,  I have referred it to my insurers underwriters to have a look at.  
I was just wondering if anyone had ever had any experience of this? 
Thanks

eddddy

I'd guess this property is always going to be an insurance headache.

If the risk needs to be assessed by underwriters, you'll always need to go to specialist insurers - and premiums will be very high, to cover underwriters' costs etc.

The way I look at this kind of issue is that it's a "property with a problem" - it will have higher annual insurance costs, will be more hassle arranging insurance, and will be more difficult to sell eventually - so that should be reflected in the price. i.e. a "property with a problem" should be a bit cheaper than a similar property with no problem.



A good solution might be to persuade the other garage user to agree to a lease for the garage - with a peppercorn/zero ground rent. But unless there's a benefit to the other garage user in doing that (e.g. you bung them a chunk of cash), I guess they have no reason to agree to that.


Edit to add...
And I guess you need to establish would be liable, and if the insurers would pay out, if for example,...

• The garage user's car caught fire unexpectedly and burnt down your house - i.e. nobody was negligent
• The garage user was doing something daft with petrol in the garage and burnt down your house - i.e. the garage user was negligent
• A fire starts in your house, spreads to the garage and becomes much worse because of petrol stored in the other person's garage
• etc.

And if the insurers paid out, might they then refuse to renew - potentially leaving you with an uninsurable property?

martindow

Is this very different from a flying freehold?  Granted that is usually parts of houses over each other rather than a garage, but they are not very difficult to insure are they?

AdrianC

I'd be astonished if this wasn't simply Chinese Whispers...

Freehold, flying over the leased-out garage. Bog standard "coachhouse" setup.

Tig13

Thanks for all the replies so far I appreciate it. 

The problem is the garage is definitely not leasehold in any way. The title deed states that the garage is part of the freehold building of the house, so essentially would be mine but I don’t have a right of use that belongs to another house. 

I have spoken with one insurance company so far and it hasn’t raised the premium at all and they have just had to note the situation but my conveyancer believes it could be a show stopper. 

AdrianC

Then it's probably worth thanking your solicitor, and simply walking away from this property.

theoretica

Sounds worth getting the neighbour's deeds too to see if they say anything that helps elucidate the situation.

Tig13

AdrianC said:

Then it's probably worth thanking your solicitor, and simply walking away from this property.

That’s what I was worried about. I am hoping there is some way to solve/remedy it? 

mrschaucer

Is this a modern house?  How did it come about historically that no lease was granted in respect of your garage, which someone else seems to have the right to use and you don't?  And what on earth do his deeds say?  As above, you need to get hold of his deeds.

Tig13

mrschaucer said:

Is this a modern house?  How did it come about historically that no lease was granted in respect of your garage, which someone else seems to have the right to use and you don't?  And what on earth do his deeds say?  As above, you need to get hold of his deeds.

The house was only built 8 years ago. It seems like a crazy thing to do.  I will ask my conveyancer to find out this information regarding the other persons deeds 

Slithery

Tig13 said:

 I will ask my conveyancer to find out this information regarding the other persons deeds 

Or you could just download the deeds yourself now for £3 from the LR website.