What is a house? – mixed use commercial premises You may have been following the case of Jewelcraft v Pressland which has been making its way from the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has turned down the landlords’ application for leave to appeal. Whilst this is not a wholly unexpected result, the Supreme Court has …
Buying the freehold with flat/s owned by the landlord not on a long lease
I want to buy my freehold, but there is one or more flats owned by the landlord that are not subject to a long lease. Can I do this? Yes. There are two possible pathways. Assuming that the building qualifies (and don’t forget it needs to be at least 2/3 let out on long leases) then there are rights to purchase the …
I want to buy my freehold and there is a commercial element in the building, can I do this?
The short answer to this: yes, provided that the area in question does not take up more than 25% of the building. The test can be complicated to apply, but essentially you are looking for a precise measurement of the net internal floor area of the property, compared with the net internal floor area of the remainder of the building. …
What is a ‘leaseback’?
Leasebacks and enfranchisement Where there are areas in a building that are not subject to a long lease, when a claim to the freehold is made, the freeholder may have certain rights of ‘leaseback’ – that is to say the right to ask for a 999 year lease of these areas. This means that when the freehold purchase completes, the …