I've been approached by someone for help with this as they've unfortunately found out I sort of work with the local council so know the commercial leasehold department.
Basically they lease a shop with a flat above, they are on one lease. The leaseholder wants to split the lease so that he can sell the flat (his own family currently live there and there's no disagreement or issue in that sense) but the council aren't answering him/or are saying no (I'm aware they may not have given the full story). So I said I'd ask about it but I wouldn't be able to actually help myself as I don't work in leasehold, and certainly not commercial.
So I called the gentleman this leaseholder has been trying to get hold of, and said this person would like to split the lease and how would they go about that? They told me it can't be done. No explanation and he clearly didn't want to discuss, just no they can't split the lease, it was given as one, it stays as one, end of. I've been trying to Google and it doesn't look like it should be an issue, though there's very little info I could find. Does anyone know are the council just being awkward for some reason (paperwork, legal fees) or is this actually a thing? I was thinking I may need to just tell them to get a solicitor or local councillor involved to help otherwise.