Tracing absent freeholders and unpaid ground rent on an older leasehold

[NDornotND]

My mum passed away recently, and I obtained a copy of the title deeds of the house she co-owned with my Dad, who is 90 years old and still living there, as part of applying for probate (I needed to know if they were joint tenants or tenants in common to value the estate). Looking at the deeds has reminded of an issue they told me about when they bought the property back in 2015. The house is leasehold, with a long lease, but the nominal rent has not been collected ever since they lived there, and according to them, the previous owner never paid it either. The last entry relating to the freeholders on the deeds is from 1946 - there are three names and the amount of rent due mentioned. I think this probably needs to be addressed somehow, as there is a strong possibility that the house will need to be sold in the next few years - either to fund Dad's care or after he passes, and this issue will undoubtedly arise during any sale.
Does anyone know what to do about this? How do we go about trying to contact the freeholders - or more likely their heirs?
I imagine the solicitor should have dealt with this, but mum and dad had a nightmare when buying the house, to the extent that the solicitor dealing with it was struck off for malpractice! So it was never resolved. Just not sure where to begin and whether to do it now or leave it until it becomes unavoidable.

Would the land registry tell you who now owns the freehold?

I'm in a similar position.

In the first instance, you can write to the name(s) listed on the deeds. Although if the deeds are that old, it's likely they have moved on or passed away? Small chance there might be postal forwarding.

If there is no response, it's quite likely you will need to take out an indemnity policy when it's time to sell, it's quite a common policy apparently.

We had this with a flat in London
Our solicitors sent letters to the Freeholders last address

They waited a required amount of time ( 6months I think ) and when they didn’t reply we applied for adverse possession . Which we got

would suggest you do this now as the freeholder can come forward up to two years after .

This was about 10 years ago

Freeholders can’t recover more than 6 years of unpaid ground rent, it is time barred by law.

When selling, the solicitors would write to last known address of freeholders and record that on the file. The seller can offer 6 years of unpaid ground rent and an indemnity. It is a non issue in most cases.

How long is left on the lease?

You can download a copy of the freehold title to see who owns it (if it’s registered).

Your father may have a right to buy the freehold www.lease-advice.org/buying-and-selling/buying-the-freehold/buying-the-freehold-houses/

This came up with my house purchase, not strictly ground rent but some charge over the land from the estate that sold it in 1910 for building. I was told, worse case i'd need an indemnity policy which would be cheap.

We had this in our last house. Lived there 10 years and never paid any ground rent to the leaseholders as we had no idea who they were, only that the house was built on land that used to belong to the church. When we sold we had to take out an indemnity policy for it, cost about £80 IIRC. Our current house was also leasehold when we bought it, but we knew who the freeholders were and paid the ground rent for the first couple of years before buying the freehold.

Thanks all - i might have a chat to Dad about whether or not he wants to buy the freehold. Reassuring that others have had similar issues and it hasn't been a significant obstacle to selling.

If you claim adverse pocession after proving the freeholder is absent and can’t be found you don’t have to buy it

in fact you can’t
Theres no one to buy off