Should we run a mile-Really strange 'flying freehold'?

bertieandgertie

My partner and I have found the house of our dreams. It has everything we are looking for and far exceeds anything else we have seen.

The problem is it has what we think is a very strange/unusual 'flying freehold' situation. The house has two integral garages, one of which has at some point been sold off to someone who lives up the road. This effectively means that one of the bedrooms is over the garage which is not our property. We are obviously going to get our solicitor to investigate ASAP but can only imagine that this must be a flying freehold situation.

Obviously this is not an ideal situation but it is this issue that has brought the price down and it seems a shame to dismiss it out of hand when it has everything else we are looking for. we realise that we would be buying at a discount and would have to sell at a discount at some stage in the future.

We have also read that whilst there may have been covenants to say what is who's responsibility and what the garage can be used for, these may not necesarily be 'passed down' once the initial purchaser/seller have moved on.

Would really love to hear peoples general thoughts on this situation, has anyone heard of anything similar, does anyone know of any other situations other than flying freehold that this might be? Are we mad to even consider this?!

Thanks.

Generali

I wouldn't touch anything that wasn't 'vanilla' unless I was getting it for a very good price.

Doozergirl

You can buy indemnity policies to cover whatever it is that needs covering in these situations. I think it is to do with upkeep responsibilities.

We had a house with a small flying freehold, no problems selling, no price reductions, bought the indemnity; end of.

Otherwise buy the garage back at a price they can't refuse if it affects the value of the house that much! Adjust your offer for the house accordingly.

maninthestreet

Do you really want whoever owns that garage coming onto your property in order to access the garage? And what might they use that garage for?

ds1980

Unfortunately the Indemnity policy isn't worth the paper it is written on!

Had similar and never had a problem. Thats not to say you won't.

If you watched Derren Brown the other night it isn't impossible but highly unprobable.

Buy it and don't worry!

bertieandgertie

ds1980, what was the similar situation you had?
It is a bit of a worry that in theory people could be accessing the garage at all hours, but given what we know of the situation I think that is highly unlikely. fFrom what I can see the garage itself is used for storage and the owners park their rather nice car in front! They live in a very big house but which does not have any parking facilities so the garage is probably quite valuable to them unfortunately.

Derren Brown-isnt he a psychic lol!

ds1980

oh dear! There's no such thing as a psychic! Its a trick of the mind!

Basically we've had houses with a passageways that are below next doors bedrooms. Thats generally the most common one.

They will use the garage to park and use. What else could you do with it. They couldnt get planning i wouldnt have thought as youd contest it. I don't imagine theres much to plan against anyway if its just a garage. Basically they own some of the land that your property sits on or is above. If you own the freehold to something then basically you own from the ground to the moon! its no big deal but your solicitor should sort and as doozergirl says take the indemnity theyll offer but see if the seller will pay first! if there are any disputes a decent lawyer would rip the indemnity to pieces but it gives you peace of mind and there are a lot of useless lawyers!

I wouldn't worry about it it happens all the time especially on older properties.

PasturesNew

Personally I'd not want to be in any property where somebody else owned a garage beneath me. Because you can never tell how noisy the doors will be, at what hours they will arrive/leave, how noisy/jolly they (and their friends, family, dog) will be when the come/go. And what if they decide that a super new hobby is building a kit car from scratch ....

Interestingly, well not really, I went to look at some new houses the other month. Unfortunately nobody builds what I am after (2 bed detached). And at one development I was offered what they called a "2 bed detached"... she tracked down the leaflet all the time calling it a Coachhouse... then she produced the leaflet. I was horrified!! It was a 2-bed flat over 3 garages. No outdoor space. 2 of the garages would belong to random neighbours.

I've since noticed a lot of developments are sneaking these in.

No thanks!

A_Nice_Englishman

If you do decide to buy and will need a mortgage, make sure your mortgage adviser knows about the flying freehold as not all lenders will lend on such properties. He should know how to find out which ones do, but I believe the info is in the Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook if you want to check yourself

Strapped

Our house is one half of an old cottage split in two, and we have a "funny" flying freehold where a tiny bit (about 1m square) of next door overlaps part of our property (bottom of our stairwell). As said above, an indemnity policy was the answer to make the transaction still happen. (If next door didn't maintain their roof, for example, then we could be flooded through their property. But then, if we decided to do some dodgy DIY, their upstairs could fall through our ceiling so fair's fair). At my parent's last house, one of the bedrooms was over next door's kitchen so it's not that unusual. Having said all that, I don't think that I would like the situation that you describe, with having someone using a garage below. Working on a car can be a noisy activity! I'd only be tempted to buy the house (at a large discount) if I thought there was some solution eg buy the garage back, or offer to construct a separate garage to replace it, and give them their own driveway to it - is this an option perhaps?

seven-day-weekend

We have had a house with a flying freehold situation for 32 years - next door's bedrooms over our alleyway - it is quite common with terraced houses.