In this week’s property surveying blogpost, we are going to be discussing Licence for Alterations procedures, and in particular if a freeholder has the legal right to refuse a leaseholder’s proposed and requested works.
Believe it or not, the freeholder does indeed actually have the right to refuse a leaseholder the right to do their proposed construction works.
Yes, you heard it right, they can indeed refuse, without reasoning, which would ultimately mean that the leaseholder is only able to do the works if the freeholder, for whatever reason they choose, were to give their consent.
The premise of this point very much depends on the wording and tone of the lease for the leasehold property. If that lease is highly restrictive, and an un-enabling lease, then the leaseholder’s rights are very much restricted, and very much down to the freeholder’s whim, and permissions.
If you are a leaseholder and you are planning on undertaking works, the reality is you shouldn’t be in this position, as your conveyancing Solicitor should have made the point very clear to you upon your purchase of the property.
However, if this isn’t the case, and your Solicitor didn’t make these points aware to you, then from a legal perspective you do indeed have a right of legal claim against your Solicitor for misinforming you, or ill advising you on the purchase.
Moving away from the historic matter, and back to the matter of actually getting on with the works. In a nutshell, unless you are able to obtain your freeholder’s consent for those works, which in our experience can usually come at the cost of a hefty arbitrary premium applied by the freeholder, or restrictive covenants that are so onerous, they are impossible to adhere to, the reality is you may find yourself in a position where you actually cannot proceed with those proposed construction works.
This is a relatively rare position to be in, for the reasons we discussed in respect of the pre-purchase conveyancing matters.
However, should you find yourself in this position, our best advice here at Stokemont would be to speak to both a Chartered Surveyor, and experienced Solicitor at the first instance, so that you can fully look at and set out a firm proposal to your freeholder to effectively sound out if they are going to give you their permission.
If you would like to discuss your Licence for Alterations matter with us, give us a call now and we will be more than happy to assist you.
