Lease variation - advice / solicitor recommendations

paulsturgess

I own a GF flat in a converted house. There is one other flat upstairs. I also own the freehold, so upstairs is my leaseholder.

There is one front door which takes you in to a small shared hall which then has separate internal doors into my flat and into their flat. I've discussed with upstairs and we're planning to try and build a new separate entrance door on the front, so there are two front doors - one into theirs, and one into mine, which will mean I'll take the shared hallway back.

Currently my lease allows them a right of way through the shared hall to access their flat. We will therefore need to amend both leases to show the revised setup. Revising the plan should be really easy. Does anyone know how much this should cost to do and / or have any recommendations of solicitors who could help with this? Spoke to one outfit in greenwich and they were quoting an arm and a leg for what I would've thought should be a very straightforward job.

Also, should I get leases amended first then do the work, or do the work then get leases amended?

Finally, not the purpose of this post but if anyone has any good builders who'd fancy helping out with this let me know!

Any advice appreciated!

cheers

Rob7Lee

Where you based?

iainment

He's in the groundfloor flat.

DaveMehmet

Rob7Lee said:

Where you based?

On the ground floor

paulsturgess

Lewisham

paulsturgess

DaveMehmet said:

Rob7Lee said:

Where you based?

On the ground floor

spot on

kings hill addick

You won't be able to amend the leases first otherwise the upstairs flat will not have access to their flat. As silly as this sounds you could then prevent them from ever getting in. Assuming that the lease on the upstairs flat has a mortgage on it the lender would need to agree to the change - another reason as to why there would need to be a new access first. However, you can't really make changes to the building (remove the shared access) until the lease is changed.

You will probably find that you will need your lender's permission to change the lease on your flat and I'm not sure how you would stand if you were to own the hallway as the freeholder and the ground floor flat have a lease with a right of access to the hallway and nothing more, but I would ask the solicitor as that might turn out to be less expensive.

As for the legal cost: leases are very complicated documents and if the solicitor makes an error they could well be liable for a big hit on their PI insurance so I wouldn't expect it to be cheap.

It might be an idea to look at doing the lease change at the same time as a remortgage, then you won't have the costs and fuss of getting the bank's lawyers looking at the old lease and the new one before they decide if they are happy to do it.

Leroy Ambrose

DaveMehmet said:

Rob7Lee said:

Where you based?

On the ground floor

Losing your touch Mehmet. Iainment beat you to it.

harveys_gardener

KHA has it pretty much spot on but I seem to remember even a minor change to a lease being over a grand plus VAT. Solicitors have to redraft the relevant parts, redraw the demarkation lines and then file with land registry. The positioning of the new entrance will need assessment of legal implications. Each stage will need to be checked by a senior partner and there are two leases, both will be different. A one-off amendment will be more expensive than my ex-company that used to give them business on a daily basis.

paulsturgess

kings hill addick said:

You won't be able to amend the leases first otherwise the upstairs flat will not have access to their flat. As silly as this sounds you could then prevent them from ever getting in. Assuming that the lease on the upstairs flat has a mortgage on it the lender would need to agree to the change - another reason as to why there would need to be a new access first. However, you can't really make changes to the building (remove the shared access) until the lease is changed.

You will probably find that you will need your lender's permission to change the lease on your flat and I'm not sure how you would stand if you were to own the hallway as the freeholder and the ground floor flat have a lease with a right of access to the hallway and nothing more, but I would ask the solicitor as that might turn out to be less expensive.

As for the legal cost: leases are very complicated documents and if the solicitor makes an error they could well be liable for a big hit on their PI insurance so I wouldn't expect it to be cheap.

It might be an idea to look at doing the lease change at the same time as a remortgage, then you won't have the costs and fuss of getting the bank's lawyers looking at the old lease and the new one before they decide if they are happy to do it.

cheers. I'm not quite sure what you're saying about order of works there though. I don't know which bit to do first and you don't sound sure above either... I agree changing the lease first doesn't seem like an option, but at the same time doing the building works now seems a bit iffy too...

Covered End

It sounds like a major costly headache to me. Is it that important to you ?

paulsturgess

It is well worth It I think - will easily pay itself back in value of the flat from having a proper private entrance than the current cramped contrived setup

clb74

Covered End said:

It sounds like a major costly headache to me. Is it that important to you ?

You can talk is it that important that 90% of people you don't know are queuing for a match ticket at 2.55

harveys_gardener

You may need to do the work in stages. Create new entrance, change lease, then reclaim lobby. Hard to be certain without seeing plans. Get prof advice.

kings hill addick

paulsturgess said:

kings hill addick said:

You won't be able to amend the leases first otherwise the upstairs flat will not have access to their flat. As silly as this sounds you could then prevent them from ever getting in. Assuming that the lease on the upstairs flat has a mortgage on it the lender would need to agree to the change - another reason as to why there would need to be a new access first. However, you can't really make changes to the building (remove the shared access) until the lease is changed.

You will probably find that you will need your lender's permission to change the lease on your flat and I'm not sure how you would stand if you were to own the hallway as the freeholder and the ground floor flat have a lease with a right of access to the hallway and nothing more, but I would ask the solicitor as that might turn out to be less expensive.

As for the legal cost: leases are very complicated documents and if the solicitor makes an error they could well be liable for a big hit on their PI insurance so I wouldn't expect it to be cheap.

It might be an idea to look at doing the lease change at the same time as a remortgage, then you won't have the costs and fuss of getting the bank's lawyers looking at the old lease and the new one before they decide if they are happy to do it.

cheers. I'm not quite sure what you're saying about order of works there though. I don't know which bit to do first and you don't sound sure above either... I agree changing the lease first doesn't seem like an option, but at the same time doing the building works now seems a bit iffy too...

You need to build the new entrance first then you can change the leases, subject to permission from all those that have a charge on the property(ies). Then you can remove the access via the shared hall. Until the leases are changed you can't remove the shared access so the upstairs flat will have two entrances in the short term, even if he only uses the new one.

However the specific details of the property will have an impact so you will need advice from someone that is going to draw up the new lease and, maybe, a builder and/or architect that will draw out the plans for the new entrance and modifications of the current one.

Covered End

clb74 said:

Covered End said:

It sounds like a major costly headache to me. Is it that important to you ?

You can talk is it that important that 90% of people you don't know are queuing for a match ticket at 2.55

Yes it is. I'm a very nice bloke.

golfaddick

I do have to ask, is it really worth the cost ? How much are you actually gaining - your own entrance. I don't think its going to add any value onto your property & as long as you get on with the people in the upstairs flat, then whats the problem & why change it ?

paulsturgess

As I said above it will easily pay for itself in value I'm in no doubt about that. Current arrangement is very poor, compromises privacy / security and feels very awkward / cramped. Creating own proper hallway and entrance will transform how the flat feels. Im pretty much gutting and completely refurbing it anyway so wanna get everything done properly.

paulsturgess

kings hill addick said:

paulsturgess said:

kings hill addick said:

You won't be able to amend the leases first otherwise the upstairs flat will not have access to their flat. As silly as this sounds you could then prevent them from ever getting in. Assuming that the lease on the upstairs flat has a mortgage on it the lender would need to agree to the change - another reason as to why there would need to be a new access first. However, you can't really make changes to the building (remove the shared access) until the lease is changed.

You will probably find that you will need your lender's permission to change the lease on your flat and I'm not sure how you would stand if you were to own the hallway as the freeholder and the ground floor flat have a lease with a right of access to the hallway and nothing more, but I would ask the solicitor as that might turn out to be less expensive.

As for the legal cost: leases are very complicated documents and if the solicitor makes an error they could well be liable for a big hit on their PI insurance so I wouldn't expect it to be cheap.

It might be an idea to look at doing the lease change at the same time as a remortgage, then you won't have the costs and fuss of getting the bank's lawyers looking at the old lease and the new one before they decide if they are happy to do it.

cheers. I'm not quite sure what you're saying about order of works there though. I don't know which bit to do first and you don't sound sure above either... I agree changing the lease first doesn't seem like an option, but at the same time doing the building works now seems a bit iffy too...

You need to build the new entrance first then you can change the leases, subject to permission from all those that have a charge on the property(ies). Then you can remove the access via the shared hall. Until the leases are changed you can't remove the shared access so the upstairs flat will have two entrances in the short term, even if he only uses the new one.

However the specific details of the property will have an impact so you will need advice from someone that is goinn to draw up the new lease and, maybe, a builder and/or architect that will draw out the plans for the new entrance and modifications of the current one.

Cheers that makes sense I spose.