Experiences buying a freehold house with a leasehold garage?

[cosypeppermint]

So we are FTBs looking for a house to buy and thinking we’d be avoiding anything leasehold... One of the places we’re viewing seems to have a leasehold garage or parking area under a nearby coach house. This seems quite common in the areas where we’re looking.

Would appreciate any advice, experiences or suggestions of questions to ask about this.

I looked the property up on the land registry and found two entries, one freehold and one leasehold. This was apparently news to the estate agent who said they’d been told the property was entirely freehold, so I’ve asked them to ask the sellers about it. Presumably we need to know how long is left on the lease, what the ground rent is and any conditions of use. What else should we ask?

I spoke to my lender who said they can only lend on a property with a leasehold garage if the title deeds are split into two. Presumably they are, if they’re coming up separately on the land registry, and our solicitor would just need to confirm this? And presumably if we offer on a property where this is the case, when we instruct our solicitor we’ll need to ask them to reissue their quote factoring this in?

Thanks for any advice!

Oh and is it worth buying the title documents before making an offer in this situation?

To be honest my view is that when considering buying anything leasehold, a good agent should have copies of the lease available for interested parties. After all, you are actually buying the lease! (I know in your case it's just the garage).
Why should anyone be obliged to pay conveyancing/solicitor's fees before they know what they are actually buying!!
I would insist on seeing a copy of the lease before spending a penny!

We bought a house with exactly this set up. Insurance was insanely expensive as the coach house was rented out and we were paying for all sorts of tenant related building insurance as part of our share.
I would be wary of doing it again.

@20questions thanks for the tip, will definitely ask to see a copy before making an offer. I’m a little rattled that the agent didn’t know about it - they said they always asked and that the vendors had said it was just freehold. Wondering if the agent forgot to ask, or the sellers forgot or neglected to mention it.

@treesurgeonsarefemaletoo sorry to hear about this. It’s a lovely house so still want to view but will definitely be asking questions about insurance and such.

We are in the process of buying a similar property. The coach house owns the freehold for their property and the garages underneath. The property we are buying is freehold but the garage is leasehold. From what I understand so far is that there is no ground rent payable and there is a peppercorn rent agreement in place but the current vendor advises that no rent has ever been collected. Obviously we have asked our solicitor to confirm everything before exchange.

@treesurgeonsarefemaletoo oh no we had no idea there would be an issue with the insurance. - was that for buildings insurance? Was that to cover the garage or the house?

@RM2013 did this cause any issue with your mortgage lender or has it all been straightforward?

@cosypeppermint no issues with the lender, valuation was done in person and offer issued shortly after. We’ve had all the searches done and mortgage deeds have been signed. I’ve seen a copy of the land registry and it does show the boundaries of our parking spaces in front of the garages.
we asked the solicitors as part of their enquiries to clarify our responsibilities and any covenants that applied to the leasehold garage.

they’ve had enquiries back and are reviewing them at present but haven’t had the solicitors report back on them yet

Fingers crossed no issues as this house is perfect in every other way and ticks so many boxes for us

Glad it’s been straightforward for you and fingers crossed it all goes through ok!

I am totally in love with this house we are viewing and have mentally moved in already and appreciate the reassurance that this doesn’t have to mean disaster

When I first saw the house listed DH wasn’t sure about viewing it because of the garage being listed as leasehold but when we viewed and the vendor explained how it all worked we decided to put an offer in.
there are loads of threads about similar situations if you google.
we too love this house as gives us so much more space compared to what we have now

Totally accept that this type of house and garage arrangement won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but it gives us 4 bedrooms and the extra bathrooms that we are really need. Buying a 4 bed detached in the same area would have meant an extra £50-60k which just wasn’t feasible.
good luck with finding your first home

Ah lovely that sounds amazing! And thank you!

It was buildings insurance for the entire building which had the garages below the coach house. Our house was separate and freehold. I felt it was unfair that the insurance was just split equally and was high because it had tenants above. That might be an unusual situation though.

@treesurgeonsarefemaletoo that makes sense. As far as we are aware the coachhouse owner is responsible for buildings insurance for the whole building including the garages underneath. Hopefully our solicitor will clarify the finer details when she reports back to us with the final enquiries
Thanks for the info

My garage is freehold but all my neighbours are leasehold under coach houses, their houses are freehold. They have to contribute to insurance and there are restrictions to what can be held in the garages, this is to protect the people living in the coach houses.

My friend lives in the coach house and can hear people in the garages and sometimes smell fumes but this was mainly from one person who was a pain, played music and used it as a gym and often has his car running with the back facing the garage.

There are also restrictions re changing the ‘up and over’ door and painting it, freeholder permission is required.

@RoseBucket thanks for your post! DH needs to store work equipment in there, we’ll definitely need to see the lease. Very grateful for all these replies, feel a lot more equipped to discuss now.

I think the leases are really long something like 250 years, def check what can be stored although sure it’ll be fine, I do know gas bottles for example were not supposed to be stored which meant another neighbour stored their bbq in a shed in their garden.

It’s very much the norm where I live, one family own lots of tiny plots of land, so peoples garages or front gardens.

it was a bit of a pain when we bought the house as there was no record of the leasehold anywhere, when it was found all we have to do is send the lease owner £4 a year.

@RoseBucket this is really helpful. We need to use the garage to store items as my husband coaches football (nothing flammable etc though) we have asked solicitor to confirm the details of what we can and can’t do. We don’t intend to use garage other than storing normal garage stuff

Thanks everyone, the garage on the property we want turned out to have no service charge at all.

Now we just have to see if our offer is accepted!