Garage separate leasehold - advice please!

[charlieking16]

Looking for a bit of advice on a freehold/leasehold issue. I live in a leasehold flat, we the leaseholders are about to buy out the freehold. The current freeholder is making a condition of the sale that we grant him a favourable new lease on the garage, which is down the bottom of the garden (with joint access down the side of the property).

We are getting a good price on the freehold because of this condition, but clearly he's spotted an opportunity to make some extra cash by either letting or selling the garage.

The solicitor advises that there is nothing wrong with this arrangement from a legal perspective, which I can see. However, practically, I'm unsure about what will become a third party having access to the property. Obviously as freeholders we would be able to exert significant control over what he could and could not do with the garage, but still I'm unsure.

Wondering if anyone has faced a similar situation, how common it is, and any proposed ways forward! Our reading is that he won't sell at such a good price without us granting him this.

Many thanks!

Charlie

[keano77]

Will he sell the freehold to you at a higher price if you don't grant him a lease?

If so, and there is only the one garage there, it might be worth paying the higher price. You then have the freehold to the garage and the right of way will belong to you (cease to exist) unless you choose to rent out the garage/grant a lease etc where you would obviously need to provide access.

Yes, you can include covenants in any lease to restrict to some extent what the leaseholder, or further sub-lessees can do with the garage but it can get messy. E.g., you grant lease to current freeholder. Unless specifically excluded he can sublet or rent out. If sub-lessee or renter breaches a covenant there is no contract between you and them. You need to chase the head-lessee (your current freeholder) to get his tenant to rectify the issue.

In short, spend time and money talking the options through with you solicitor as a higher cost now can save you a lot of money down the line, especially if you sell.

[womanofdulwich]

yes, but also you as leaseholders will all jointly own something of extra value, and you must be sure who will have control of the garage and who will control who you sell it to etc etc

Scenario- someone gets permission to develop it- it becomes worth ?300k- 2 flat owners want to sell it and 2 don't - management issues - fall out etc etc.

how is it held? if you well your flat- will ownership be tied up in the freehold- will someone else want to buy your flat for ?300k but not want to buy it for say ?375k inc the 1/4 share of the garage with planning consent ?

[charlieking16]

Thanks both. Yes the issue really is that he is giving us a particularly good price on the freehold on the basis of him having the garage on a lease. Seems the convenants of the lease will be the key thing...

[intexasatthe moment]

Very fuzzy headed today but covenants are one thing ,enforcing them is another

[rendelharris]

As ITATM said - thirty years back my mother bought a bit of land at the back of her garden with two neighbours, and they divided it up to make their gardens bigger. The guy from whom they bought it had tried and failed to get planning permission, so he put a covenant on the sale that nobody was allowed to build on it. Two years ago one of the neighbours decided to have his house knocked down and build four new houses on the site, including the piece of land with a covenant on it. When she (mother) tried to oppose this on the grounds of the covenant she was told that as the original vendor had died in the interim the covenant was unenforceable as it would be up to him to make the complaint - so now she has four geet ugly Barret homes at the end of the garden!

Get the best legal advice you can.

[nxjen]

So does this mean that when anybody who has created a covenant as the condition of selling land dies that the covenant is unenforceable? Seems a bit odd.

[rendelharris]

nxjen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> So does this mean that when anybody who has

> created a covenant as the condition of selling

> land dies that the covenant is unenforceable?

> Seems a bit odd.

Seemed odd to me too but that's what we were told - the original seller had died intestate, I don't know if it would have been different if he'd passed it on somehow.