Leaseholder above me not respecting lease

[Peachesandmelons]

I’m having a lot of trouble with the person who bought the flat above me. He’s a developer/builder and carried out a full renovation.

his lease stipulates that he has to put carpets down and my freeholder and has asked to do this too. However he has repeatedly avoided the question despite me complaining about sound transferring through.

he’s now finished the work and it’s clear he hasn’t put carpets down and I can hear people walking above. It’s very disruptive. He’s saying that the work is done, he wanted to carry out an acoustic test but I didn’t reply (I’ve made it clear that I don’t believe the carpeting is dependent on whether he chooses to carry out an acoustic test and what that says) and that he won’t be placing carpets.

im a leaseholder and own the flat below.

what recourse do I have? I think my freeholder is fed up with him but not sure if he will do anything.

it’s causing me a lot of stress. If you have any advice, I’d be grateful.

Maybe the acoustic test results would have persuaded him though? If the noise disruption is as bad as you say then this would probably have been obvious from the test.
(Yes, I know he should put down carpets anyway but not sure what you had to lose.)

Hi OP
Am I correct in assuming you are living in a house conversion? 2 flats and both of you are the freeholders as well - shared lease/freehold?

If not, go to freeholder. You can try the council, planning department duty desk if they can help

otherwsie its the solicitors.

ps - you have a sperate freeholder i noted - get him to take court action for breach of lease. However, do yuor research first as above

It depends on what your leases say about breaches of the terms of the lease.

Some leases state that a freeholder must enforce any breaches of the lease by other tenants in the building and most leases contain a right of forfeiture for breach (ie a right for the freeholder to terminate the lease).

You can ask the freeholder to send a strongly worded letter to your neighbour requiring them to lay carpets and tell them that if they fail to do so their lease is at risk of being terminated.

Does the lease have a mortgage on it? You can check this at the Land Registry. A lender would be concerned that a freeholder might exercise their right to terminate the lease for breach and they would lose the security for the mortgage. A nuclear option would be to write to your neighbour’s lender advising them of the breach and telling them that you are also writing to the freeholder and asking them to exercise their right to forfeit - this would be very heavy handed and would undoubtedly affect your relationship with the neighbour but most people don’t want to upset their lender.

Thank you so much for your replies.

just to answer a few points:

1. I have a very very poor relationship with the neighbour above. I had to write to the council several times as he was carrying out heavy building work (drilling, scaffolding) well after the noise regulations so at 10pm at night, all day on Sundays. He also flooded my flat despite me warning him there was water leaking in. He left it for two days. In the end, my freeholder paid for it to be repaired and repainted as he was fed up with him.

1. We are two flats in a single storey above a shop. I’m directly above the shop and he is above me.

1. We are both leaseholders. We have a freeholder who owns the whole building. I’m not sure my freeholder has the appetite to take him on. He’s already been very difficult even with him so far.

1. I would not hesitate to write to his lender if I knew he had one. However I think he may not have a mortgage. The flat had a very short lease of 50 years and was in disrepair. It went up for auction and he bought it so I’m sure it was in cash. He may be looking to remortgage now though.

Human beings nearly always prefer the path of least resistance. If your FH doesn’t want to deal with your neighbour because he is difficult, you need to make yourself a bigger nuisance to your FH. Call, write and chase your FH about this and pressure them into taking action.

So I’ve just had this message from my freeholder:

Dear Peaches,
I've just written to the owner of the flat above, making the relevant points, I think. I hope it produces the desired response.
It may well be that, if there is no move to carpet by them, you would be able to pursue this via a solicitor. Without prejudice, if push comes to shove, I'm not sure that we as freeholder would be compelled to or would in any case choose to intervene in this way. We would as a preliminary have to take advice, which would probably be chargeable to the leaseholders.
kind regards
freeholder

i think you can find out via Land registery website for around three quid who owns the shop and if there is a mortgage by asking for copy of deeds. That tells you if they have a lender - but do your own research re details they will provide

Warning - when you Google 'land registry' there will be several sponsered sites that look like the official land reg sites but are not and charge you many times more than the 3/4 pounds for the smae info - so make sure you are on the offical site - i think they have a phone help-ine as well that we used when gidting rental propery ourselves and no solictors used.

It’s not the shop but the flat above me that is the issue.

if anyone can tell me where I stand with regards to my freeholder’s email, I’d be grateful.

You might want to try the Leasehold Advisory Service https://www.lease-advice.org/

Bump. If anyone has any more advice I’d be grateful!

I think you have confused people by saying that you are two flats and a single storey, if his flat is above yours then the building must be ground floor +2 floors above?

Most leases oblige the freeholder to take action if asked by the lessee. What does yours say?

Sorry. Yes that is exactly it. One shop. I’m above the shop and he is above me.

You’ll need to provide the wording on your lease around breeches by leaseholders for anyone to know what options you might have.