Leaseholders - experience trying to get Freeholder consent for alterations?

[PiaC]

Hi, has anyone come up against a freeholder taking their sweet time to provide consent for alterations (loft extension)? just trying to figure out what other have experienced and what our options might be. Solicitor is advising litigation but I wonder if just the threat of litigation would be enough ? for context, we have 50% share of freehold in a Victorian house converted into 2 flats.

It has been 3 months since we sent our freeholder our request to obtain a license for alteration.

Can you be more precise OP.

Are you saying that there is a separate company that owns the freehold and you are a 50% shareholder of that company? Are you a director of it?

If not, what is the structure?

@thinkfast both flats own 50% share of the freehold. Hope that helps. So we are looking for consent from the other freeholder for a loft extension (loft and roof demised to our flat).

Also, just wanted to ask if delay equates to unreasonably witholding consent. Could we go to tribunal/court to get an order to go ahead with our works if freeholder is unreasonably delaying (effectively unreasonable withholding) consent?

No that doesn't help, sorry. Do you mean that the registered proprietors of the freehold are the same individuals who are the registered proprietors of the flats? Or is there a separate company which owns the freehold in which both flats own a share?

is your downstairs neighbour the other freeholder and the one causing a delay? Have you spoken to them about it? Or is it not owner occupied

yes its the downstairs. We dont really have a relationship with them so have gone through our solicitor to get a License to alter as that is what is required per our lease. We have paid for their solicitor and surveyor as well already.

both flat owners are also the freeholders. No separate company.

Your answers don't make it clear whether you have verbally asked them whether they have the paperwork and can they sign it.

Even if you don't have a relationship with them the quickest way to get people to respond to anything is going to talk to them in person.

It would be also cheaper than litigation to talk to them.

Maybe they don't agree to allowing you to do what you want?

yes, it seems they want to delay for whatever reason and have still not come back to us or our solicitor 5 months on. They have now finally appointed a solicitor and surveyor. The next step will be court if they continue to be uncooperative. @Mosaic123 they cannot withhold consent for alterations unreasonably i.e. for things like noise, or they just dont agree/like it. If they have a legitimate reason then I can understand but they've not communicated this either. Our lease does not prohibit alterations and the roof and roofspace are demised to us.

In my research, it seems that since we are both freeholders as well as leaseholders, we have to take each other to court if there any dispute regarding the lease covenants. We should have been advised by our conveyancing solicitor that the freehold should be held as a company then we could go to the first tier tribunal which is significantly cheaper when it comes to resolving disputes like this. So basically we are stuck paying for maintenance for common areas as the other freeholders never want to do any work! and the only way to get them to agree to the maintenance and subsequent expense would be to take them to court. This is a massive flaw in the way the 50% share of freehold situation works out in reality.