Extensions

Can we build an extension on our share of freehold ground floor garden flat?

Anonymous user 23/02/2024 - 2.49 PM

We live in a large edwardian house which is split into 5 flats. All the owners have an equal share in the freehold, but ours is the largest property in the building, the entire ground floor, garden, garage and a large designated parking area. We get on well with all the other freeholders, who are investors rather than owner occupiers (which we are). Our garage is separate from the house, on the same side as our parking - but the front door is on the opposite side of the house and only accessible via a path from the road. This is quite annoying when arriving home with lots of shopping in the car etc. We would like to move our front door to the same side of the property as our large designated parking area - this parking area is basically the entire driveway up to the house - and create a porch extension. We would also like to convert the garage into a studio space - which would be behind the new porch. To build the porch we would be building on our designated parking area - with the other freeholders consent is this something with might be possible? I assume the parking area is 'shared land' - even though it is exclusively for our use unlike the garden which is 'owned' by the flat? The small amount of land used for the porch is not of any use to anyone else, and it would definitely enhance the outside appearance of the house. This is our long term family home and property is worth a lot more than the others in the block- do you think it would be worth trying to buy the entire freehold off the other owners if that is what it took? This would also mean that we could maintain the property as we would like to - the other owners being investors obviously have a different interest in the building that we do.