Posted this in AIBU and someone suggested I post here too, so...
We own a share of freehold with the other maisonette in our building. We’ve always got on really well with the neighbours since they moved in, thank goodness! They’re now selling and the loft space is demised to them (as they have the upper flat and this is agreed in the leases). The buyer has expressed no interest in converting the loft, but DH in particular is really worried that someone will eventually buy the place and want to do a massive extension up there, essentially another storey (a few years ago someone wanted to buy the flat and do just this – like 4 rooms and a bathroom!) but that fell through. We’d have no objection to the usual (for our area) one or two rooms in the existing loft space though.
The leases state we as landlords (ie co-freeholders) can’t unreasonably withhold consent to alterations, but we are having real trouble with what exactly ‘unreasonable’ means in this case. Our solicitors are vague about it but surely if we own the freehold jointly with the other flat we have some kind of say? In addition, we have sole use of/access to the garden which is demised to our flat, and in order to do works on the roof we would have to give access to workers, which is fine in an emergency or necessary maintenance but I wouldn’t be happy with letting scaffolders etc come through our living room, especially at the moment when we’re wfh. (The flats each have their own front door).
Can anyone give me some examples as to what ‘unreasonable’ would mean here? Our solicitor seems to think we’d have no rights at all, seller’s solicitor says we would (but of course they’d say that as they want to get this sorted for their client). This is really stressing me out – we really don’t want the sale to fall through but surely we have some control over what happens to the building?!