Loft conversion not included in lease

koalakoala

Oh I’m glad we don’t have any of that nonsense in Scotland

user1977

koalakoala said:

Oh I’m glad we don’t have any of that nonsense in Scotland

Hmm, not quite, we might not have any leases but still possible for a top floor flat to extend into a loft they don’t own!

Emmia

fluffy_kittens2024 said:

Emmia said:

swingaloo said:

I have a friend in a similar situation. She lives in a flat, its a house divided so she has the upstairs. She had the loft converted with planning permission and permission from the council as its an ex council property. 

She has had 4 buyers and each time she has ad the sale fall through. Even though the conversion was done with the relevant permissions she does not own the loft space and the freeholder will not sell. 

She didn't get all the relevant permissions though. She should have sought freeholder consent and potentially purchased the space / had it added to her lease before starting any work. 

Right now, with the work done, and her wanting to sell, the freeholder has her over a barrel - they could also require her to return the converted space to it's original condition (i e. rip it all out) at her cost.

It wasn’t me who undertook the work, it was the previous sellers. So my question to my solicitors now is why they didn’t raise this when the flat was purchased by myself (I’m using the same solicitor). 

That wasn't in response to your question...

fluffy_kittens2024

Emmia said:

fluffy_kittens2024 said:

Emmia said:

swingaloo said:

I have a friend in a similar situation. She lives in a flat, its a house divided so she has the upstairs. She had the loft converted with planning permission and permission from the council as its an ex council property. 

She has had 4 buyers and each time she has ad the sale fall through. Even though the conversion was done with the relevant permissions she does not own the loft space and the freeholder will not sell. 

She didn't get all the relevant permissions though. She should have sought freeholder consent and potentially purchased the space / had it added to her lease before starting any work. 

Right now, with the work done, and her wanting to sell, the freeholder has her over a barrel - they could also require her to return the converted space to it's original condition (i e. rip it all out) at her cost.

It wasn’t me who undertook the work, it was the previous sellers. So my question to my solicitors now is why they didn’t raise this when the flat was purchased by myself (I’m using the same solicitor). 

That wasn't in response to your question...

Ah so sorry. I wonder if I will be cut any slack considering 1. I didn’t do the loft conversion and 2. It wasn’t flagged by conveyancing solicitors when purchasing. I doubt it. 

unforeseen

Why would the conveyancing solicitor know about it in the first place? It's normally the buyer's job to inform their solicitor that the plans agree with the physical layout or not. 

user1977

unforeseen said:

Why would the conveyancing solicitor know about it in the first place? 

Because the OP says they have “the previous seller's documents such as planning permissions, party wall act, permission from landlord etc etc for the conversion”, which presumably came via the solicitors.

fluffy_kittens2024

unforeseen said:

Why would the conveyancing solicitor know about it in the first place? It's normally the buyer's job to inform their solicitor that the plans agree with the physical layout or not. 

Well it was the buyers solicitor who noticed it in this instance. So surely it should have been the same when I was the one buying. It was my first ever house purchase and I thought this is/was what you pay solicitors for. 

Emmia

fluffy_kittens2024 said:

unforeseen said:

Why would the conveyancing solicitor know about it in the first place? It's normally the buyer's job to inform their solicitor that the plans agree with the physical layout or not. 

Well it was the buyers solicitor who noticed it in this instance. So surely it should have been the same when I was the one buying. It was my first ever house purchase and I thought this is/was what you pay solicitors for. 

But, there is an element of you also needing to do some due diligence - your solicitor will never visit the property, so won't know that the floor plan in the title doesn't match the reality that you'd viewed... I.e. there's a whole loft conversion in addition to the area specified on the lease 

Schwarzwald

At the end, confront your solicitor with the question of how this was missed and take it from there. Really not much ppl can advise on this situation.
to rectify it, might need to approach the freeholder to include it in the lease, but that is often costly.

fluffy_kittens2024

Schwarzwald said:

At the end, confront your solicitor with the question of how this was missed and take it from there. Really not much ppl can advise on this situation.
to rectify it, might need to approach the freeholder to include it in the lease, but that is often costly.

Yeah - have done - won’t expect a reply until the new year though. It does actually say this in the lease, which, in fact exactly matches the wording in the freehold guide for leaseholders, where they give an example of wording in a lease where a loft space is INCLUDED within a lease. I’ve sent this to them too. 

“It is hereby declared that one half of the depth of the joists between the floors of the upper maisonette and the ceilings of the lower maisonette and the external walls above this level and the roof are included in this demise”