Shared freehold of maisonette - can one "freeholder" sell part of their land

[Bradley_m]

Hi all, I'm new here and after some advice.

We own the upper floor of 2 storey detached maisonette, sharing the freehold with the owners of the lower maisonette.
They own the whole of the large front garden, which is currently divided into a driveway and a front lawn.
They are quite elderly and their son approached us last week asking if we would be interested in buying the grassed area off them to convert to a driveway for ourselves, as his father is struggling with the maintaining the garden.

He gave us a rough figure they had in mind that they want to sell the land for. After adding the cost on conversion would make it impractical for us to proceed.

He then informed me that he has someone else interested in buying the land, who lives nearby. I think this is simply "pressure tactics".

However, my question is can they sell their portion of land without us giving consent?
I do not know the in's & out's of our shared freehold for a maisonette, but it was my impression that in order to amend the deeds to the maisonette to show a new owner to this portion of land, it would need consent from all parties of the freehold?

Before getting our solicitors involved I thought I'd ask around on a few forums.
Many thanks in advance for any advice given.

[Richard Webster]

You need to look at the lease to see if there is any restriction on assigning or underletting part only (as opposed to the whole) of the area within the lease. Such a restriction is very common. If it it there then all freeholders have to agree to a sale of part of the land ion a lease.

[Bradley_m]

Thanks for your response Richard.

We contacted the solicitors we used when purchasing the property, and he confirmed that they cannot sell a portion of their land without our consent.

Apparently we jointly own the freehold for the entire plot our property sits on. We are then both assigned a lease documenting exactly what area's we individually own.
For either of us to sell a part/portion of our property, the consent of both freeholders would be required.