Bank REO Training

If you hold a leasehold residential flat in England or Wales you may want to contact your freeholder (referred to as a ‘landlord’ in legal terms) for a whole range of reasons. Maybe you want to extend the period of your lease, perhaps you along with a group of neighbours want to buy the freehold, perhaps you have issues with the management of the flats as well as the freeholder controls the repair or possibly you have an issue with the ground rent.

It should be simple to find your freeholder but sometimes it is not. Perhaps you don’t know the details and don’t know where to start looking. Your flat’s lease record possibly will not be the best place to start. It will detail the original parties to the lease and will tell you the original freeholder, but this might have changed.

If you have been getting ground rent demands, then these will have all the freeholder’s details. The demand needs to be in a accepted format so almost without doubt you should have all the information you need on there. Although surprisingly frequently freeholders either overlook sending the demand since it is hardly ever for a great sum, or the freeholder is no longer actively involved in their ownership.

If you don’t hold any of the above, in that case you can easily acquire a Title from the Land Registry online (not the same as the lease but it should show the particulars of your freeholder). The Land Registry charges £4 at the time of writing (December 2010) for any person to look for the freehold title. You can also obtain the leasehold title just for your flat or the freehold title should list all the flats in the flats for which the freeholder has title. Go to www.landregistry.gov.uk along with look for the Find a Property section along with you can go to the Title Registry section along with download a copy of the freehold title.

If you know the name of the freeholder and some supplementary details you may still not have the contact details. This is where you mayneed to do a little detective work. There are an enormousamount of online sources including social media, online directories plus excellent search tools that might be able to locate your missing freeholder.

The primary thing to remember is that the law is on your side. The second thing is, if you have tried every potential way to get in touch with the freeholder, there is generally a way that the system allows you to get the result that you want, be that a lease extension, freehold acquisition or Right to Manage (RTM). You will need an enfranchisement solicitor plus/or surveyor to help here as well as you can find vetted local practitioners at their web site www.alep.org.uk.

Possibly the freehold is owned by an individual plus they may have died. Alternatively they have moved and not informed the Land Registry of their new address, as is their obligation. An added option is that you have not been offered the “right of first refusal” when a freehold title was sold. This is illegal as well as for 18 months you have the right to overturn the sale or purchase it yourself.

Having found the freeholder is sometimes only the beginning of the journey for someone wanting to extend the lease or buy the freehold. We deal with unresponsive landlords in a separate article.

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