Flying freehold

[Neil]

Hi,

We are considering an offer on a house but there is a flying freehold involved (we think). It's seem to be the other way round to most of what Google turns up in that our new property holds up a significant chunk of the neightbour's.

Its was clearly once a big house that has been extended and split. For the front view, draw a horzontal rectangle and then draw a triangle over the left hand two thirds to represent the roof. There is a bedroom (next door's) in that triangle and a flat roof to the right,

Now draw a vertical line a bit less than half way from the left hand side of the rectangle. The right hand side of the rectangle would be our house, holding up a significant section of the roof containing next door's bedroom.

Or take a look at

where the house we are thinking about is in the rectangle.

Do you think it would be mortgageable? Anything to watch out for?

Cheers

[NT]

It simply means you have a legal duty to provide support for the neighbour's bit, so you cant demolish your room or let it become structurally dangerous. I dont know about mortgage co policies on this, I'd ask them informally.

NT

[John Williamson]

Try asking in uk.legal.moderated and I would definitely consult a legal advisor before going any further. The problem isn't so much mechanical as how well the agreements were drawn up in the first place. You would need to see the original paperwork.

[Steve Firth]

There's more to it than that since a fire in either property will affect the other to a greater extent than in a semi. The same goes for water leaks.

Houses with flying freeholds are notoriously difficult to sell.

[Newshound]

Agree about fire and water(although same applies to flats), but not sure I would agree with the last point. I bought one in the mid 80's, and the solicitor and bank didn't bat an eye-lid. I did in fact buy it out before I sold; I had the "room upstairs" and this involved buying part of the room below. The other property had been bought up by a property developer and they were converting to flats, it wasn't particularly expensive and they built the new block wall. I got a bit of extra garden too.

[RobertL]

I was involved in buying such a house 20 years ago. At that time the local (english) building societies and banks were not very happy and i found tha tteh scottish banks were less fussy. Apparentl this kin dof thing was much more common i nscotland where eve nflats were sold with individual freeholds 'in the air'. I expect time shave changed now.

Fire insurance might also be an issue.

Robert