Freehold house, leasehold garage under coach house

eddddy

mandy87w said:

Now I’m thinking what if other residents using car park drives or damages either garage. 

If somebody driving a car damages the garage (or any other part of the building), the car driver is generally responsible for paying for repairs.

But if, for example, you don't know who the driver was - damage caused by "impact by a vehicle" is usually covered by buildings insurance, but they'd be an excess to pay.


You also need to check the lease to see who is responsible for what. For example, if the external walls of the garage are damaged - they're probably the freeholder's responsibility. But if the garage door is damaged - the door might be the leaseholders responsibility.

ciderboy2009

One other thing to bear in mind with garages under coach houses is that, quite often, the lease will restrict what can be stored in them - often quite severely.

Bendy_House

This is a very common setup, Mandy, and in practice is very straight forward and should have little impact on you. It just becomes 'normal'!

The physical garage will be insured, almost always as part of the coach house above it. You will contribute the very small amount to this, either directly to the coach owner, or - as looks in your case - via a general maintenance charge. It shouldn't make any difference in practice, and your solicitor should confirm all that for you. It shouldn't be an 'issue', or cause for concern.

(But, once moved in, I would make certain you DO contribute, so you can never be accused of being in breach.)

The contents - a car - is obviously your responsibility!

Where this setup 'can' make a difference is where it comes down to what you want to store in there, or any changes you may wish to make. For instance, using it for general storage 'might' be technically outlawed, if these are deemed to be a risk, such as being easily flammable. You will almost certainly find that storing petrol is forbidden, and this might also mean no petrol lawnmowers.

And it might even not allow an electric power supply, so you may need to go 'solar' if you want lighting in there. And forget welding or engine strip-downs; you'll have to find a different hobby.

In practice, there is often flexibility. Some coach-owners will allow a power cable to be run, but not sure if that remains a 'breach' and could be an issue if something goes wrong. Others will turn a blind eye to other activities going on that just shouldn't be, perhaps as they are concerned about approaching the grease monkey weilding a large spanner.

I wouldn't worry if all you have is the leasehold garage, but you certainly need to be more ready if you become the coach-house owner

mandy87w

morning and thank you Bendy for your guidance and guidance 🙂, fine I’ll have to sell my welding equipment 😂

Bendy_House

mandy87w said:

morning and thank you Bendy for your guidance and guidance 🙂, fine I’ll have to sell my welding equipment 😂

I KNEW it!

Fantasy complete

Er, I have this old car that... :-(

RM_2013

Yes we had been told that there may be restrictions on what the garage can be used for as it’s underneath a coach house. Fortunately this suits us as we only use it for storage 

NameUnavailable

RM_2013 said:

Yes we had been told that there may be restrictions on what the garage can be used for as it’s underneath a coach house. Fortunately this suits us as we only use it for storage 

You will probably find that the lease allows for the parking of a vehicle or bike only (and specifically not storage of household goods etc. or any kind of recreational use).

RM_2013

NameUnavailable said:

RM_2013 said:

Yes we had been told that there may be restrictions on what the garage can be used for as it’s underneath a coach house. Fortunately this suits us as we only use it for storage 

You will probably find that the lease allows for the parking of a vehicle or bike only (and specifically not storage of household goods etc. or any kind of recreational use).

Thanks we will look into this as it’s unlikely we would put a car in the garage.  Most likely used to store the kids bikes, DIY stuff and my husband is a football coach so we use our current garage for storing the stuff he needs for
that 

mandy87w

thank you for your help I haven’t gone any further with this. It’s all new to me and I don’t want any problems later on down the line. 

Bendy_House

RM_2013 said:

NameUnavailable said:

RM_2013 said:

Yes we had been told that there may be restrictions on what the garage can be used for as it’s underneath a coach house. Fortunately this suits us as we only use it for storage 

You will probably find that the lease allows for the parking of a vehicle or bike only (and specifically not storage of household goods etc. or any kind of recreational use).

Thanks we will look into this as it’s unlikely we would put a car in the garage.  Most likely used to store the kids bikes, DIY stuff and my husband is a football coach so we use our current garage for storing the stuff he needs for
that 

Most folk are reasonable. But, if the terms of the lease says 'no' to household storage, then a pedantic (perhaps correct) coachhouse owner might feel they need to impose these restrictions. I suspect most won't - they'll just turn a blind eye - but some likely will. IF that's what the deeds say.

Please don't assume you'll be able to store these materials if the lease says 'car/bike only'. Good chance you will, but it ain't guaranteed.