Freehold house leasehold garden

[Deleted User]

I bought my current property 2 1/2 years ago thinking that this was freehold. I am now in the process of selling and I have fpund out that the garden at the back of the property is leasehold with only 44 years left on the leasehold. The property is freehold.

The buyers solicitors are in the process of determining whether this will affect the value of the property and whether it will affect their mortgage application.

They have advised to try and purchase the freehold or extend the leasehold but either way I'm financially implicated.

I have contacted my previous solicitors to find out who is liable for this implication. They have said that's its been missed by both sets of previous solicitors but that I essentially signed the land registry document (which was an old copy). To confirm the leasehold garden is still in the old vendors name.
My argument is, how should I be financially responsible to potentially cover the cost of the lease extention when I didn't know about it and its not in my name?
Also that's what I pay a solicitor for.
Secondly, if the value of the house is decreased or they won't get offered a mortgage then the house will fall through. Will this affect my current mortgage application on the house as I was offered this mortgage based on a freehold property? Also, if my buyers mortgage undervalues the property, who will be responsible for covering the shortfall if any

Slithery

Ggodfrey said:

My argument is, how should I be financially responsible to potentially cover the cost of the lease extention when I didn't know about it and its not in my name?

Solicitors never visit the property during a purchase, they will have given you a copy of the Land Registry title and asked you to confirm that it matched up with what you thought you were buying. It's not your solicitors fault that you didn't realise that your garden wasn't on the plan.

[Deleted User]

There's abit more to it. Even before I bought the property is was sat at 46 years which would have been classed as extremely low to get a mortgage against. 

[Deleted User]

And as mentioned, I wasn't given an up to date version of the land registry document 

Tiglet2

Ggodfrey said:

I bought my current property 2 1/2 years ago thinking that this was freehold. I am now in the process of selling and I have fpund out that the garden at the back of the property is leasehold with only 44 years left on the leasehold. The property is freehold.

The buyers solicitors are in the process of determining whether this will affect the value of the property and whether it will affect their mortgage application.

They have advised to try and purchase the freehold or extend the leasehold but either way I'm financially implicated.

I have contacted my previous solicitors to find out who is liable for this implication. They have said that's its been missed by both sets of previous solicitors but that I essentially signed the land registry document (which was an old copy). To confirm the leasehold garden is still in the old vendors name.
My argument is, how should I be financially responsible to potentially cover the cost of the lease extention when I didn't know about it and its not in my name?
Also that's what I pay a solicitor for.
Secondly, if the value of the house is decreased or they won't get offered a mortgage then the house will fall through. Will this affect my current mortgage application on the house as I was offered this mortgage based on a freehold property? Also, if my buyers mortgage undervalues the property, who will be responsible for covering the shortfall if any

Do you have the paperwork for when you purchased this property 2.5 years ago?  There should be a letter/email from your purchase solicitor which enclosed a copy of the Land Registry Title Plan.  The solicitor would ask you to confirm that the area edged in Red is an accurate reflection of what you think you are buying.  It sounds to me like the Title Plan showed the house edged in Red and you confirmed agreement by signing the Plan.  The solicitor doesn't visit the property so wouldn't know that there was a garden on an additional Title.  Indeed the garden being on another title would mean that there were two transactions, not just one.

The seller's solicitor may also not have realised that the seller's property comprised of two titles and just drafted the contracts with the one title.  Neither you nor the seller ever realised that the Title Plan did not include the garden and therefore did not query it.  Unfortunately the onus is on the buyer to check that the Title Plan matches what you saw when you viewed, simply because the solicitor does not view the property.

You will struggle to prove that either of the solicitors were liable.  However, if you can get the previous owner to transfer you the garden title asap, it hopefully will not hold up your sale too much.

eddddy

It sounds like you're saying that there are two problems...

1. The leasehold garden was never transferred to you - so a previous owner of the house still owns the lease of the garden.
2. The lease on the garden is only for 44 years.
   

So first, you need to persuade the previous owner to transfer the lease to you.

Then you need to persuade whoever owns the freehold of the garden, to sell the freehold to you or extend the lease.


(As others have said, it sounds like your solicitor did nothing wrong when you bought. Had you told your solicitor that the Land Registry plan didn't match what you thought you were buying - that would have triggered an investigation. And you'd have found out that the garden was leased, and that it only had 46 years left on the lease.

Because you didn't say anything to your solicitor about the Land Registry plan mismatch, your solicitor had no way of knowing.)

Freecall

From what you say, I think that Tiglet2 pretty much has it.

Presumably when the house was purchased there was no separate purchase of the lease for the garden or the two separate transactions would definitely have been flagged up by your solicitor as an unusual arrangement.

In which case it sounds as if you bought the house but not the land which is now used as a garden

If that is the case then as you are not the freeholder or the leaseholder of the garden land, the length of the lease is irrelevant.  You can't sell the freehold or the leasehold interest in the garden land as you don't own either of them.

kirtondm

Unless the plan you signed off to included the garden this is going to be difficult.

I had a similar issue with a garage but I was 'lucky' in that I had signed off on the right plan and it was my solicitors error , even so it took 2 solicitors and the land registry to sort the error out but we just about kept the sale.

It could well involve some payment to the previous owner ( if they can be traced ) to encourage them to sign over the garden.

HampshireH

Be prepared to lose your buyers.from what you have said you have no rights to the garden at all, let alone to sell it.

It's not going to be a quick fix and yes those costs will be down to you as you don't yet own or even lease it.

NameUnavailable

What a mess!

I guess the vendors (if they own the lease) are oblivious and if contacted will just agree to transfer the lease to you as long as you cover all legal costs.

Then you need to contact the freeholder and ideally buy the freehold off them - I can't think there are many people who would be happy to buy a freehold house where the rear garden is on a lease, unless it was 999 year lease.