Leaseholder floor plan alteration without FH permission

[Bert21]

Hi forum,
My elderly uncle 10 years ago separated his large house into a ground floor 99 year lease, which was sold to a buyer, whilst he himself lives in the upper part of the maisonette maintaining the freehold.

The first buyers recently sold their lease to a new family who live there now, and at the time of sale my uncle was asked to approve an alteration to the floor plan/deeds since the basement of the ground floor had grown by 20m sq, by demolishing a non supporting wall and gaining access to all the space under one of the rooms on the ground floor.

He sought legal advice and his solicitor phoned the new interested buying parties' solicitor for clarification on what was to be gained by him approving alteration to the floor/plan deeds. To which the answer was nothing, and the sale proceeded regardless, even though he did not sign, although I assume the new buyer used that as a bargaining chip to knock down the original leaseholders on price.

The question remains, given that unauthorised works were carried out in the building, what is my uncle's position regarding some sort of redress, since he is concerned that a dispute with a leaseholder may devalue his freehold.

Thanks for any advice,
Bertrand.

[flyingfreehold]

in so far as Unc has acquisced to the work in the basement he - in theory - loses the right to do anything about it. However its not a great situation for the buyers of the flat as they cannot prove title to the land being acquired by adverse possession. His best bet is to write to the buyers and say that he objects to their trespass onto land not demised to them and to inform them that he wishes to store something down there (ir some old junk). Keep it boiling, a deal is there to be done, with the buyers resolving by taking an additional co-terminous lease of the land that they are are seeking to annexe