Joint freeholder rights

[roxron]

Hope someone can advise - I am a joint freeholder of a two-storey conversion. I live in my flat and the other freeholder lives in France and rents hers out. We have a very bad parking problem here and we approached the other freeholder about using the frontage as parking, her lease shows she has the bulk of the front garden. We have offered to pay for all the works and planning permission to be done tastefully and to have a parking space for us and her tenant. The frontage currently looks awful and she has neglected this. She is not agreeing to our proposition, saying she doesn't want her tenants looking at a car parked outside, this is rich as she is not a good landlord and does not look after her tenants. Her tenant has said she would love a parking space too. She is now making my property less valuable than comparable properties in the road as they are all now having parking installed. Has she the right to do this as although her lease shows the bulk of the garden as hers - I am a freeholder too and she is unreasonably obstructing improvement to the property. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

But it's mainly her property. She can do what she wants with it.

This is not necessarily the case as I have checked our lease and cannot find anything indicating her ownership - but as I am a joint freeholder, I would have thought I would have a say in anything undertaken with the property outside.

But in your OP you said your lease showed she owned the majority of the front?

I guess OP means the other freeholder's lease covered the majority of the front

The leaseholders would need to agree on any works to common parts (that's if this is a common part, that doesn't seem the case?)

You can't force her to do works like this that she doesn't want to do. It's not essential building maintenance, and you are speculating about it increasing the value - which is irrelevant anyway.

You could ask her current tenant to let her know that it would be a good plus point for renting, that may help.

I assume you are each long leaseholders. As she owns most of the front that you want to develop I can't understand why you think you can force her to develop her property because it seems to suit you. What next? Don't fancy her curtains so force her to change them?
Do you not think that if your task is to persuade her to spend money developing her property then you might be rubbing her up the wrong way?

We have checked our lease and there is nothing in it that indicates her ownership as lessee, in fact there is no mention at all about the front garden, only the path as a common area. We cannot now remember how this assumption came about regarding who owns which part of the garden as this property was purchased a long time ago. So if there is nothing indicating ownership in the lease, does that mean it is shared/commonhold land and we both have to give mutual consent for any changes?

Do an index map search with the land registry. Copy your title plan, colour in the piece of land and the LR for a small fee will tell you the title number(s) that affect the land. If you then get office copies of those titles you can find out who owns it.
Unless it's in your lease though it's not you.

Though in your OP you say her lease shows she owns the bulk of the front garden. Isn't this the area you want to develop?