Headlease inbetween Freehold and Leasehold

[sorrelly]

In the process of buying a property (Victorian terrace) - it is freehold and leasehold - we are buying both, but there is a headlease in between them which someone else (not the seller) owns. Does the fact we are buying the freehold take precedence in terms of any right the person who owns the headlease might have?
Our conveyancer isn't being much (any) help.
Thanks!

Don't forget that whilst you don't need a mortgage, when you come to sell this might prevent anyone with a mortgage from easily buying. So it would become your headache if you go ahead without this being resolved.

@TakeYourFinalPosition hmm interesting. Me too!

@PragmaticWench (great name) yes, true. Although the person we're buying from bought it with a mortgage and said this didn't come up as an issue. He's spoken to two other owners on the row of terraces and they were unaware of the headlease too. Such a weird and annoying situation.

It is really odd. Does the seller have any explanation of why the headlease even exists?

No - he's been adamant that the person he bought the property from had sorted everything out at the same time they arranged for the whole terrace of 4 to buy their freeholds in the '90s. He's since provided another document from the same period which shows the transfer of a title from the headlease owner to the person he bought from but under a totally different (4th!) title number. We thought this might be to do with the headlease but we've looked it up on Land Registry and it doesn't seem to exist anymore?! Argh!

What a weird mess!

The land registry sometimes merges titles (so two title numbers would become one, and one of them would cease to exist) but they keep records of that. I’m not sure that you can access those records as a member of the public but your lawyer would be able to, and that might shed some light on what has happened!