Leasehold Flats: What Transpires When Lessees Can't Locate The Freeholder?

If you own a leasehold residential flat in the UK one may want to make contact with the freeholder (referred to as a 'landlord' in legal parlance) for a whole range of reasons. Perhaps you wish to extend their lease length, possibly one and a group of neighbours wish to buy the freehold or maybe you have issues with the management of the development.

Your apartment's lease possibly will not be the best place to begin. It will describe the original parties to the lease and will tell to you the original freeholder, but this may have altered. So you need to keep digging.

If you have been in receipt of ground rent demands, then these will have all the freeholder's particulars. The demand should be within a standard layout thus almost certainly you should have all the information one require on there. Nevertheless surprisingly commonly freeholders either overlook sending the demand because it is not often for a large amount, or the freeholder is no longer actively involved in their ownership.

If you don't hold any of the above, then you can easily purchase a Title from the Land Registry from the internet (not the same as the lease but it ought to show the details of their freeholder). The Land Registry charges £4 at the time of writing (December 2010) for somebody to search for the freehold title. You can in addition obtain the leasehold title only for your apartment or the freehold title should list every one of the flats in the estate for which the freeholder has title. Go to the Land Registry web site and look for the Find a Property section and you can go to the Title Registry section and download a copy of the freehold title.

Then again maybe the freeholder is not answering your efforts to get in touch with them. It is surprisingly common for leaseholders of residential property to telephone, write or email their freeholder and to obtain no reply. A frequent point in time for this to be exposed is when buyers or sellers of flats should supply proof of the buildings cover of their block. This is often arranged by the freeholder (check the lease document to verify whose obligation it is) and it is their obligation to confirm to a lender that the development is adequately insured.

If you know the identity of the freeholder and a number of other details you may still not have the contact particulars. This is where flat owners might need to undertake some detective work. There are a huge amount of web based resources including social media, web based directories along with outstanding search tools that may be able to find your missing freeholder.

The first factor to bear in mind is that the law supports you. The second thing is, if flat owners have tried every potential way to contact the freeholder, there is still always a way forward, be that a lease extension, freehold acquisition or Right to Manage (RTM) process. you will need an enfranchisement solicitor and/or surveyor to assist here and you can find vetted local practitioners at the web site of organisations such as the Association of Leasehold Enfranchisement Practitioners.

Possibly the freehold is owned by a person and they may have passed away. On the other hand they may have moved and not informed the Land Registry of their latest address, as is their obligation. Another option is that flat owners have not been offered the "right of first refusal" when a freehold title was sold. This is prohibited and for 18 months you retain the right to overturn the sale or purchase it yourself.

If your landlord tells you they offered the freehold to someone else, even though the original landlord's particulars are on the Title, then legally they remain the landlord. It is their lawful obligation to make sure the data is updated.

One of the reasons you might be struggling to get in touch with the freeholder is that the company possibly will have ceased to trade, gone into bankruptcy, entered administration or even been struck off by Companies House.

You may have found that the assets of the freehold company - if the freehold was held by a company - possibly will have passed to the Crown. The Treasury Solicitor will then nearly certainly be happy to sell the freehold to flat owners and your neighbours at the open market value, in other words the total for which a freeholder could sell the freehold at an auction. The ultimate value would be down to flat owners to negotiate.

If the company is in receivership or administration you can serve the notice on the administrator or official receiver. If bankruptcy applies then there will be a trustee upon which to serve the necessary notice or for you to contact.

If your best labors throw up a blank and one and fellow lessees cannot uncover the freeholder - a situation known as an 'absent landlord' or 'absentee landlord' - then flat owners can think about applying for a Vesting Order through a County Court.

In the beginning you have to procure a legally satisfactory valuation of the freehold. You ought to employ an experienced and credible surveyor with a specialism in Leasehold Enfranchisement.

When one have the Vesting Order, one can subsequently apply to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT) for them to establish the cost to you to buy the freehold. The process is proscribed in Section 26 of the Leasehold Reform and Urban Development Act for freehold acquisition or Section 50 for lease extensions. One should be able to acquire the freehold a great deal cheaper than if you COULD locate your freeholder, because the LVT will consider you 'offer' price. Seeing as there is no counter bid, as long as your first offer is acceptable, you can pay the relevant County Court the agreed amount and embark on the process of purchasing your freehold. The money after that goes to the freeholder if they turn up.

You can request a solicitor, surveyor or intermediary to undertake the detective work for you. Be careful to draw on those with track records - their professional body is the Association of Leasehold Enfranchisement Practitioners (ALEP). There is substantial leg work and flat owners will save a lot of money doing it yourself. However, there are numerous pitfalls to negotiate so flat owners will need patience and resolve. But it will be worth it in the end.


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Andrew Szebeni works with |is a part of the Association of Leasehold Enfranchisement Practitioners. ALEP has more than 100 members including specialist solicitors/surveyors. How to buy your share of freehold