Q. I have been told by my solicitor that the investment property that I am selling has an an absentee freeholder, what impact will this have on me selling?
A. An absentee freeholder is a freeholder who is not carrying out their obligations under the terms of the lease. If you are a leaseholder you may find that the ground rent, maintenance and insurance monies are not being collected. This will also probably mean that the property is not being cleaned, maintained and worse still, not insured.
An absentee freeholder is a more common problem than some would think, and is not always a simple one to remedy. You may find that your freeholder has moved, emigrated, died or just forgotten to collect your premiums. Whatever the circumstances you will need to remedy the situation, otherwise you could find that you are unable to sell your property.
Conditional on any sale will be the production of accounts for the management of the property and insurance policy documents. You will struggle to sell your property if these are not in place.
Your mortgage lender (if any) will also be concerned if the property is not insured as this could have catastrophic repercussions should something go wrong.
If you think the insurance policy has lapsed or that there is not one in existence then you should insure the block immediately and divide the premium between all leaseholders. Purchasing the freehold of your property could be a solution; you would need the services of a specialist solicitor to act on yours and the other leaseholder’s behalf if you were to consider such an option.