Situation :

We were asked to value and potentially market this ‘Roffy’ built one bedroom ground floor flat in late summer 2019. The property had some fantastic sales attributes which included a private south facing terrace and a garage. We agreed a sale on the property within a matter of weeks to a first time buyer. 

It was subsequently identified that the title plan of the property being sold did not incorporate ownership of the terrace space nor did the lease provide for exclusive right of use of the space. To further complicate matters, it was identified that the lease of our vendors onward purchase contained a restriction against working, which was unacceptable to our vendor.  

Action taken : - With regard to the forward purchase, the advice of the selling agent was for our client vendor to simply 'move in and work' as others 'had done it before'. We advised against this and instead requested that either the lease be varied to allow the leaseholder to work or for the freeholder's committee to agree in writing that the lease provision would not be enforced. 

For our client vendor's sale, the situation was more complicated. A solution had to be found that was acceptable to the buyer and its mortgage provider. In the current situation an insurance policy covering the defect in the lease was unacceptable to the mortgage company. To resolve the deadlock, we worked with solicitors and the freeholder to agree a lease variation to provide for sole usage of the terrace. 

Result : - For our client's onward purchase, the freeholder's committee agreed in writing that the relevant lease provision would not be enforced and an agreement was documented and executed in approximately two weeks. For the sale of our client's property, a deed of variation was drawn up and executed by all parties and the sale and onward purchase was able to complete three weeks later.

Feedback from client :

"Aspire Residential are an excellent estate agent. Professional, friendly staff, and I can’t thank Mike enough for all of his help. He kept me up to date at every stage and was a great help with my purchase too. I would highly recommend them.  – Carol Bailey, Google Review"