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Our client owned a long lease flat. He and other owner occupiers in the building had had no contact with the registered Freeholder for several years. In addition to struggling to sort out the insurance and building upkeep, our client was aware that once the number of years left on his long lease has dropped down below 80 years left it can make the property difficult to sell as some mortgage companies will not lend to fund a purchase.
Our client had 2 basic choices – either to try and buy the freehold with sufficient other leaseholders in the building or to extend the lease by 90 years. With an absent freeholder, both routes would need a vesting order.
A vesting order is a court order used when your freeholder is absent or fails to respond to statutory notices for lease extension or freehold purchase. In simple terms, if you're a leaseholder trying to extend your lease or buy your freehold, but your landlord has disappeared or won't cooperate, you can ask the court to make the sale happen anyway. I deal with genuinely absent freeholders- other colleagues will assist if the freeholder is simply uncooperative.
The best long-term solution is often to club together with as many neighbours as possible to apply to court to acquire the Freehold itself. However in this case the client’s neighbours declined to join in with him.
So, we made a similar application to court in his name and instead of applying to acquire the freehold, we applied for and obtained a different Vesting Order, to add 90 years to his current long lease. As with a freehold acquisition vesting order application, a premium has to be paid into court,as determined by the First Tier Tribunal.
Uniquely to Taylor Rose Solicitors we can offer an additional step in the process which, after roughly 2 years, enabled our client to reclaim virtually all of the funds paid into court. This bespoke application was “invented” by our Geoffrey Stagg and whilst its success will depend on the particular circumstances it potentially makes the exercise a great deal more affordable.
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