What Are Lease, Transfer Or Title Documents & What Do They Do? What Does Demise Mean?
What are lease and transfer documents? What do they do? What does demise mean? We aim to break down and answer these questions in this section.
Demise is a word which generally encompasses the conveyance or transfer of one or more properties by freehold sale or lease. So whether you own a freehold or leasehold property or land, it is demised to you.
What are lease and transfer documents? Although there are some significant differences, a lease, title or transfer are all essentially documents in similar formats that set out the benefits of and obligations associated with a property. Where properties contribute towards service charges, these documents form a contract that legally obligates the leaseholder or homeowner to pay the service charge and explains what maintenance and services will be provided in return. They contain covenants which may require the occupier to do, or not do, certain things. An example of a positive covenant would be for the occupier to clean the windows once a month. An example of a negative covenant could be that the occupier could not play loud music late at night. It is important to know what you can and can’t do in your property to prevent breaching these covenants as there may possibly be a legal recourse associated with the breach.
Leases are used where the property in question is sold leasehold. This means that property is constructed on land that is owned by another party and the holder of the lease can occupy that land for a set period of time. Apartments are almost always sold leasehold because they are built on top of one another and as such more than one property occupies the same piece of land. In broad terms, it is not possible for more than one party to own to land so it must have one owner that then leases the spaces that each apartment occupies to each leaseholder (apartment owner). It is also possible to have leasehold houses although most are sold freehold.
Freehold property owners, own the land on which their property is built as well as the property itself. A freehold title in theory goes down to the centre of the earth and up into the sky until reaching outer space, although certain rights are always reserved such as an allowance for an aircraft to fly through your bit of sky or water to pass underground etc… A freehold property is sold using a transfer document. This document can contain the same types of covenant and requirements to pay towards a service charge as leases, although sometimes the service charge is known as an estate rent charge.
A title is a bundle of rights in a piece of property in which a party may own either a legal interest or equitable interest. The rights in the bundle may be separated and held by different parties. As such, a transfer, a lease and also the freehold interest of land on which other properties are demised, are all also known as title interests or documents.
We hope this gives you an idea of what are lease and transfer documents, if you need any further information please contact us.
