Owning your own home

Possible - go outside and see if there's cowl or caps fitted

Definitely a possibility. Not the only one though. It could be that the pointing is shot if it's a brick chimney, or the flashing has deteriorated and is leaking.

Any reasons not to use a solicitor based outside London for conveyancing on a new-build?

No. As long as they are on the list your lender accepts it doesn't matter where they are.

Mortgage valuation fine and mortgage offer received. Just waiting for the full building survey report but not expecting any gremlins there.

Nice. I'm a few days behind you so have been interested in your updates. Best of luck for the next steps.

You too!

So far as next steps. We're still trying to get the details from our freeholders' to send to our buyers. Even though I tracked down their new solicitor after their old one closed (none of the leaseholders were notified), my solicitor has only had one response saying they were contacting the freeholders. I emailed my solicitor today to say that I've lost patience with the polite emails and what else can we do. Fully expecting to be told "nothing". Next step is me turning up on one of the freeholders doorstep as I know they live in Sevenoaks.

One of the many problems with the current leasehold system is that the law and lease-drafting practice hasn't kept up with conveyancing practice. Lenders and buyers invariably want the vendor of a leasehold property to get their landlord to complete an LPE1 form. That's perfectly understandable, but the problem is that I've never seen a lease which requires the landlord to complete an LPE1 form on request, and there's no statutory duty on them to do so. So if you can't trace the landlord, or if the landlord simply says 'fuck off, shan't, don't wanna wanna' there's not a great deal you can do about it.

Apart from turn up on their doorstep with an LPE1 form, a pen, and some big burly mates. But I couldn't recommend that.

I mean, I'm not pretty, nor am I slight.

Say these freeholders aren't aware of their privilege to ignore a poor waif like myself, what phrases could I drop into conversation so, how you say, shit them up a bit?

Say these freeholders aren't aware of their privilege to ignore a poor waif like myself, what phrases could I drop into conversation so, how you say, shit them up a bit?

You could always point out that section 1 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1988 imposes statutory duties on landlords where the tenant wishes to assign (i.e. sell) their lease. Those statutory duties might not arise in your case - it would depend on the drafting of the covenant against alienation in your lease - and even if they did apply then they wouldn't require the landlord to fill in an LPE1 form. They might well not know that though.

section 1 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1988

I may willfully misinterpret their lack of response as not giving consent and infer that they are in breach of that. Maybe.

Thanks!

What to do when the roof probably needs replacing and there is a freeholder and 2 leaseholders.

I'm the leaseholder of the top floor, the roof is leaking in a way that suggests multiple badly done DIY patches (from the inside!) are no longer holding up. Initial assessments from roofers (yet to receive the quotes) suggest scaffolding as large areas need re-tiling.

To me: Once we're at the point of scaffolding we may as well re-tile the whole roof. The roof is old, many tiles are not straight or are chipped and cracked, the felt inside has long gone. There's no record of when this was last done but visually from the street it's the oldest of all houses around.

But... to the downstairs leaseholder, they're broke and £1k is a figure that scares them and they wish to have the cheapest option no matter what. So have no appetite to go from £1-3k to £8-14k.

Is this something I can force? It's a shitty thing to do but the thought of another patch up job (even a decent one) doesn't feel like the wisest thing.

For an idea of the state of the roof right now: Several tiles missing, ability to put arm through the holes, rain comes through into large buckets, in various places someone in the past nail-gunned insulation to under the tiles to hide the degree of damage and to wick the moisture over a larger area so that it reduced impact - it was the heavy rain this weekend that finally overcame that solution and has caused ceiling damage.

But... to the downstairs leaseholder, they're broke and £1k is a figure that scares them and they wish to have the cheapest option no matter what. So have no appetite to go from £1-3k to £8-14k.

Guess if they're that broke you could always offer to pay a larger share yourself for peace of mind that your house isn't falling to bits

Obvious question, what does the lease say?

In my situation I owned the upstairs flat of a house conversion and I was responsible for all roof repair costs and, from what I gather, this isn't uncommon in London.

Bad for costs of repairing a roof. Good for adding a loft conversion.

You can only force it if you're prepared to charge the downstairs neighbour ~£1k and front the rest of the funds yourself?

If you did replace tiles, do you think the leaking would stop?

Obvious question, what does the lease say?

It defines my domain as:

ALL THOSE several rooms known as Flat B on the First Floor or the Building up to and including the ceiling plaster and including the floor covering the floors and including the plaster of the external walls and further the internal walls dividing the rooms and parts of the flat and one half (severed vertically) of the internal walls of the said Flat dividing the Flat from any common parts of the Building including the front door of the Flat (which for the purposes of identification are shown on the plan or plans annexed hereto and thereon edged red)

Basically the inside of the flat and the walls within the flat, up to the ceiling plaster.

Roof isn't specifically mentioned... but I'm currently looking through it carefully and comparing to the lease of downstairs.

Found mention of the roof... it's in both my lease and the lease of downstairs in the same wording:

The Lessor will whenever reasonably necessary maintain repair and redecorate and renew:

(a) The external walls and structures and in particular the load bearing walls and foundations joists roof storage tanks gutters and rainwater pipes of the Building

(b) The gas and water mains pipes drains and electric mains cables wires in under and upon the Building or any part thereof or any part of the Building or any part thereof and enjoyed or used by the Lessee in common with the lessees of other parts of the Building

So it appears to be a shared cost... we own from our paint / plaster inside... and share all structural and building costs.

If you did replace tiles, do you think the leaking would stop?

Temporarily yes if we repaired those areas.

But I suspect we'd face similar costs periodically and would only defer the large cost to the future... so I think we'd pay more overall by only doing a bit of the job today.

Just to play devil's advocate, going from £1-3k to £8-14k is not insignificant.

While I appreciate the idea of doing it all in one go, if patching it lasts say 2-3yrs then a full repair is not an obvious no-brainer. Especially if you factor in how often people move.

Could this be the time to try and buy the freehold? Use the roof as leverage to get them to agree to help you buy it if you front the money?

Agreed, but if the rest of the roof is under 20 years old, I'd not be keen to replace it all.

Could this be the time to try and buy the freehold? Use the roof as leverage to get them to agree to help you buy it if you front the money?

This is my thought this morning.

Even if I ask them to only get involved in buying the freehold so we can force that... I don't mind them being freeholders too, I just want clarity on the lease. The roof is exactly why, and would allow us to re-write the lease as a horizontal split where the roof becomes fully mine and we both go from 150 year to 999 year leases in the process.

Our ground rent is £0, so the freehold purchase should be a formality and low cost... and then I can just do the whole of the roof.

Yes, sounds shared. The other thing to look for is whether the lease has any more on responsibilities to repair, etc which you could use to force renewal rather than repair.

As has been said, now may be a good time to push for buying the freehold and sorting things out properly. Personally I had the share of freehold with the other flat and it worked out very well for us. From the roof aspect I replaced the whole roof at my cost but combined that with a loft conversion (it still needed the permission of the other freeholder but it wasn't costing him anything and I was putting a new roof on so he was fine with it).

The other thing to look for is whether the lease has any more on responsibilities to repair, etc which you could use to force renewal rather than repair.

The only additional responsibility comes from the freeholder. Who could compel work and just issue a bill.

I've read enough to know that if I go down this path the bill goes up significantly as the freeholder doesn't have to charge us cost or be price sensitive about selecting a vendor and could employ a friend for a shared profit, etc... so I'd rather not trigger the freeholder.

Agreed, but if the rest of the roof is under 20 years old, I'd not be keen to replace it all.

The areas that need to be replaced are all the central spaces. A full job will go to the edges and chimney.

I imagine that during a full re-tiling even newer tiles will be removed and laid again and incur some wastage because of that.