Freehold Lease transfer and Seller responsability

jeremy2012

Hi Expert people, 

Looking for advice - I live in a block of 4 flat and since I been there, there has been couple of flat sold and believe we have opportunity to improve our freehold association.

In the latest change of ownership, we been ask to do an ID1 check which we believe should be to the responsibility of the seller rather than the rest of us.

Is there a way, we can add into the lease / freehold association the below:

For any change of ownership, Seller to be responsible for the following cost:

1. To pay for any cost when change of ownership for any freehold title update. ID1 check and admin cost related to each owner.
2. Seller to be responsible for the paying full communal area deep clean + Carpet clean. (So to keep communal area spark clean)
3. Seller to be responsible to pay for lock change on any communal door (so to maintain building security)

Couple of questions:

1. How much would a solicitor charge us to get this added to the freehold association. (We are a block of 4 flat with share of the freehold) -
2. Would that be a simple process and if we have the majority of 3 out of 4, can we get this moving forward before we sign completion as the sales is close to completion - We have received signature pack with TR1 and ID1. 
3. Anything else that we think we could add to the seller responsibility from the 3 items above? (I want to understand if the expense is worth to spend time to put this in place if in the long run, it help to save money for the freehold with these expenses being the responsibility of the seller.
   

Many thanks

eddddy

That sounds like some of the stuff you should put in a "Declaration of Trust" between the joint freeholders.

(As an aside, the "deep clean condition" seems strange. Why do you only want deep cleans done when a flat is sold? That could mean that it could be 1 month between deep cleans or 10 years.  I imagine that the terms of your leases already allow for periodic deep cleans anyway.)


Plus there should be loads of other stuff in the Declaration of Trust. For example, how to deal with disputes - like whether a repair is necessary, how the repair should be done, which contractor should be used, etc.

Also, how to get around problems like one (or more) joint freeholder(s) refusing to sign freehold transfer documents when a flat is sold - either because they're disinterested, or because they 'don't like' the person who is buying, or any other reason.


You might find that some solicitors have a template version of this document, which you can use as a starting point.




Edit to add...

Perhaps the 4 of you get on fine at the moment, and generally agree on stuff - but maybe consider the possibility that a flat is sold to somebody who is "difficult", or has a very different view of how the building should be managed.

jeremy2012

I like the idea of a declaration of trust settling some key obligations.

Rational for deep clean is that we have informal arrangement to keep communal area tidy and use a cleaner once a year but with the latest owner moving out without doing their share of cleaning, (despite saying that this will be done, I feel that when someone move out - it could be their responsibility to spend for communal area tidy up the same way as you leave a flat tidy at the end of a tenancy. 

Help to save money in our kitty funds - and would be pretty respectful to the rest of the owner staying in.

Bearing in mind that the ID1 verification process is pretty painful, any solicitor calls so far does not provide it unless existing client, which has been time wasted for existing owner - I feel we do need to protect ourselves moving forward from this.

Right now, having wasted so much time calling solicitor without success and the owner having left the communal area pretty not clean - I do not feel a rush to sign the signature pack...

eddddy

jeremy2012 said:

I like the idea of a declaration of trust settling some key obligations.

But remember that people don't always do what they are obligated to do.

You have to consider how to get around situations where a joint freeholder won't agree to repairs, won't agree to pay for repairs, won't agree to sign documents - even though the declaration of trust says they must.

jeremy2012 said:

Bearing in mind that the ID1 verification process is pretty painful, any solicitor calls so far does not provide it unless existing client, which has been time wasted for existing owner

FWIW, my experience is that bigger, busier, more impressive solicitors don't want to take on small jobs that don't pay much - like ID1 verification.

But smaller, less busy solicitors are more willing to. I recently used a solicitor in a small town, with a 'less impressive' office above a shop. They also tend to have lower fees.

Tiglet2

Do you charge a fee for providing answers to the LPE1 document? Managing agents for larger apartment blocks often charge a couple of hundred pounds for providing answers to the LPE1.   Perhaps you could incorporate an additional fee to account for the freeholders' time and expense in each getting the ID1 completed at an independent solicitor's firm, along with a witness to the TR1.