Buying freehold from'absent' freeholder Post Reply

[isababy]

Has anyone been through this process? We have agreement with our neighbour to purchase this jointly. Can anyone recommend a solicitor who specialises in this area?

[Geegee007]

Sort of. The vendor of the flat we bought in April started the process about a year ago and we are now finally on the verge of having the title transferred to our names.
From what I understand our vendor spent about £10-15k on a private detective/lawyer combined to show he had made the relevant enquiries to trace the freehold owner/and or any beneficiaries.
Once sufficient evidence had been gathered it was submitted to some kind of court in January. About 4-5 months later a hearing took place and a price and transfer was agreed on.
Our vendor and upstairs neighbour have paid the money to the court and we are now waiting for the freehold to be put in our names.
As you can see it has taken a long time and quite a bit of expense but he got there in the end.
It is the court part that seems to take forever.
Good luck and I do believe it is well worth doing particularly if you plan to sell in the future- we took a risk buying our place with this outstanding but fortunately it's come good.

[Busy Mummy]

It's likely to be extremely worthwhile purchasing the freehold as it will make your flat much more saleable and a freehold interest is more desirable than a leasehold one. You and your neighbour will have control over the property and can also be certain that you are spending money on repairs etc that you actually both want to have done.

You and your neighbour only have a duty to undertake reasonable enquiries so you should hopefully not need to spend as much as £10-£15k doing this although this will depend on the circumstances. The hearing may take a few months to come on but there would be steps directed by the court that you would need to do in the meantime.

A list of solicitors specialising in this area is available through the LEASE website - you do need to have someone who is experienced in leasehold enfranchisement litigation or the costs will rise. A barrister will be likely to be involved for appearing at the hearing at least but a good solicitor specialiing in this area should be able to do most of the legal work beforehand themselves. You would also, in due course, need to instruct a valuer (surveyor) specialising in this area to value the freehold interest. It is important to try and carry out this exercise whilst you both have more than 80 years remaining unexpired on your leases or the cost of the freehold may be more due to the way in which it would have to be valued under the relevant legislation.

Obviously, you would be splitting the cost between yourself and your neighbour and that would also include setting up a freehold company to hold the freehold so that the freehold title would remain unchanged if either of you sold your leasehold interest.

As you can see from the above, there is quite a lot involved in this process but it is definitely worth it. The above is pretty basic advice from someone who is on that LEASE website list (!) - if the solicitor you choose can't tell you what I have set out above - and more - then you need to find someone else !