Contacting other leaseholder - advice please

[user1499087279]

DH and I are buying our first home. It's a leasehold flat on a ground floor Victorian conversion. Seller is refusing to provide insurance details of the other flat (solicitor says it isn't legally enforceable to make seller get these details). Flat we are buying was previously rented to the LA and it took months to get council tenants out. We don't think the current leaseholder has ever lived there so may not have met the occupants of the upper flat but have told us it owner occupied. We've been past and knocked a few times to meet them and ask them if the upper flat has damp (something we need to fix in the lower flat) but the other flat has never come to the door (though this is London and I know some people don't answer if they aren't expecting callers). I'm very nervous about it, the outside is freshly painted but in the survey, we had the gutters identified as in need of fixing and place isn't very well looked after. To be fair I think this is sellers fault as they are responsible for hallway and front and back garden. Has anyone got any advice? I'd really like to meet the upper flat before we complete the sale in case they are a nightmare and we can't get anything fixed (there is no ground rent and repairs to the exterior are supposed to be 50/50), many thanks!

You need to track down the freeholder rather than the other leaseholder to find out about insurance. Unless the freehold is shared between the two flats or fully owned by your upstairs neighbour, then it is the freeholder, who is usually a third party, that is responsible for insuring the building. The freeholder should be named on the Land Registry records. Whether or not s/he or it in the case of a company is active and takes the responsibilities seriously is a different matter.I suspect, as the vendor isn't passing on details, that the freeholder may be absent which could cause problems with your lender (if you have one).

Wrt the upstairs neighbours, have you dropped a note through the door saying that you are buying the downstairs flat and have a few queries and could they call you at some point about x/y/z (obviously make these queries as uncontroversial as possible)? Say that you are coming round on such a day and ask them if they could pop down to say hello?

Thank you lalalonglegs, I will take your advice on the note idea unfortunately the lease is in such a way that it's the responsibility of the leaseholders to have insurance, we would be responsible for insuring the downstairs including the exterior and the upper flat for the roof etc.

Generally you can't insure part of a building which is why the freeholder has to insure the block - I strongly suspect that the flat is not insured as it would be a struggle to find an insurer willing to cover on the basis you describe .

LaLa is right, the freeholder has to arrange buildings insurance. Which is either you (if you are share of freehold WITH the other flat) or a third party freeholder if you are a leaseholder.

Your solicitor will know which you are. Sounds like you are leasehold and as LaLa says you need to look at Land Registry and get freeholder info.

Most mortgage lenders have that buildings insurance must be in place as a condition of giving you the money.

Alarm bells ars ringing! Who owns the freehold? Are you purchasing the flat with a share of the freehold or if there a 3rd party?
What does your solicitor say?
My mother had a nightmare with a share of freehold property. There were 3 flats, all of which had own insurance. When she came to sell her buyers solicitor insisted whole building should be insured, so she had to take out a policy for the whole building herself (and pay for this all herself) to be able to sell in the end. One other flat owner was still refusing to cancel their policy (even though my mother was not asking her to pay for the building policy too) as they "got such a good deal" which would mean the policy covering the whole building was invalid....
This was not even the half of the problems that she had to do with that set up and why she got out!
Do you have a mortgage?

Hi, yes we have a mortgage, solicitor didn't seem to think it was a big deal at all that the two flats had separate insurance he rang us to explain that the freeholder had very little to do with the property (though we do have their address) and about whose responsibility was whose under the lease and what we needed to insure.

I would double double check this. AFAIK it's very usual for leasehold flats to have the buildings insurance, simply because you don't actually own the building, only the lease "rights" to the inside of the flat IYSWIM.

The freeholder can be as uninvolved as they like, they still own the external building and therefore are the ones who would need to take out the insurance.

I would check all of this, and proceed with caution. As I said, if the mortgage company require buildings insure (and most do) this complication could make them not lend.

Investigate fully!

Also if your solicitor is not experienced in leasehold law they could have it wrong. Found this out the hard way.

Many thanks for all the advice, it's a peppercorn rent as well so we're not paying anything to the freeholder, I don't know if that makes a difference!

No, it doesn't make a difference (and even a peppercorn rent needs to be paid). As the freeholder seems quite uninvolved and is unlikely to be raking in any huge income from the building, I would approach him/her to see if it would be possible to buy the freehold. Tbh, it sounds as if you have a slightly flaky solicitor who is not making you aware of the legal pitfalls of buying an uninsured and potentially uninsurable building. If the freeholder is unwilling to sell and unwilling to insure, see if you can set up a right to manage company with your upstairs neighbour in order to get control of the building and start taking care of these issues yourself information on how to do it here.

It doesn't. You have my sympathy - leasehold is bloody confusing, and a bit unfair really. Hey ho, it's not changing any time soon.

The bit to get your head around is that if you are a leaseholder you only "own" the inside really (dependant on what is demised on your lease).

The freeholder owns the ground, building, windows, loft, anything outside of your demised flat.

You pay the ground rent, that's one thing. Separately you have to pay for upkeep of these outside bits / communal areas, even though you don't own them.

You also have to ensure there is buildings insurance (and pay for it!) even though the freeholder owns the building, and arranges and pays for it initially usually.

Sorry if you know any of this already!

lala has some great info and advice!

Don't panic, we had the same thing. We have an absentee landlord, which means we pay no ground rent and the landlord was uncontactable when we purchased. All we needed to do re buildings insurance was to buy a special policy (called indemnity insurance, I think from memory), that will protect us in the absence of buildings insurance - for eg, if our upstairs neighbours' don't have sufficient insurance and something happened to the building that damaged our flat.
Your solicitor should be able to help you - actually, we passed the policy fee (it is a one-off policy rather than an annual thing - again if memory serves) onto the vendor, so it ended up costing us nothing at the time. However I think you need to buy a new policy if you ever remortgage or change lenders, as each lender will have its own criteria. It didn't affect our mortgage in any way.

Thank you lmamouseduh, just heard the solicitor has already requested the seller to buy the indemnity insurance, he also said that this kind of lease is found in about 20% of all leases and especially old leases! Phew!