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could you not buy the freehold on the open market, so you become his landlord? Or does that just get you into a bidding war?
If you have misgivings about him being your landlord, then I'd say get back to the negotiating table to get a result you can live with. -
How bad can it be to have him as a freeholder?
A fucking nightmare
If I were you, I'd do everything I could possible to be the Freeholder, in a house that's divided in to two flats.
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My sister owns a top floor flat above the freeholder, who live on the ground floor. It's been pretty annoying for her generally - them turning down requests to extend, charging them for maintenance, etc, generally just someone having control over you who ideally you'd be in an equal partnership with.
I'd definitely try to co-buy the freehold if you can.Edit - I'd assume your home's value would go up by at least 3k if you had a share of the freehold too.
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While you guys are arguing about who buys the freehold, you're exposing yourself to being exploited by a third party landlord, to the detriment of both of you. If Assethold or Triplerose or Tchenguiz gets hold of your freehold, you will be absolutely fucked. You will go from being a home owner to a mortgaged tenant.
Read up on what happens when your freehold is purchased out from under you. Read up on how hard it is to get out from that situation. Both of you get it together and block this exposure you currently have. If you think the other guy could be a potentially awkward landlord, wait until you have a landlord who sees your home as nothing but a finance stream for his legal teams to feast on.
It happened to me. I paid £2400 in service charges this year. I paid £1000 in 'legal fees' for owning dogs which are allowed in my lease, but I don't have the legal resources to challenge. I will be paying an extra £2k next year for major works I don't want. Three years ago I paid £5k for major works I didn't want. I have paid for two roofs in 10 years. I have been to court four times in 2018, I'd never been before owning this place. You are deeply, deeply vulnerable, and your neighbour is one of the smallest fish in the London pond. You can manage him. Managing the sharks out there in the property game is another matter.
Seriously mate. Sort this. I don't care if this guy is a KKK member, work with the prick and protect yourself. It's a fucking jungle out there.
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@dbr
We bought our flat at the same time as our downstairs neighbour (Victorian terrace divided into two flats, he has the basement, we have the first floor). They had a short lease which was extended to 125 years during the purchase. His plan is to dig a light well in half of the shared front garden and extend out the back, neither of which we are principally opposed to.
While we were embroiled in major renovations he asked if we wanted to purchase the freehold with him - I said it wasn't our priority but we could look at later. Next thing we know a Section 5A notice pops through our door telling us that he's going ahead with the purchase of the freehold on his own.
We definitely do not want him as our landlord so we began talking about jointly purchasing it again. We've had lots of back and forward (he wants to do it as ltd company, we just want to be named on the title). His whole reason for buying the freehold is to make his alterations easier, he's asked us to agree in principal to the alterations before we buy the freehold so we've been talking through the details of those.
Last night he snapped at us requiring assurances that we can get to our roof to make repairs once both gardens are full of extension and light well. He now says we should forget the whole thing and not purchase the freehold.
Given that he's already tried to buy it outright, it's only 6k in total, and our notice of first refusal has now expired (my understanding is that the freehold can be sold on the open market now) he's probably going to go ahead and buy it himself.
Is it worth trying to talk him back into buying it together? How bad can it be to have him as a freeholder? He has already been quite shitty about repair work, going back on verbal agreements, vaguely threatening to report our windows to planning... is there way to stop him buying it?