The top and bottom of this is that any lender wants to have solid security for their loan.
For leasehold this means things like:
* Having a clearly defined person who is responsible for buildings insurance (uninsured piles of bricks aren't good security)
* Having a clearly defined person who is responsible for maintaining the building (a crumbling building with a plumetting market value isn't good security either).
Note that by "person" I mean a legal person - this could be an individual, a company, or a trust.
The next thing they want is to be able to access the security for the loan.
This also ties into the freeholder - for example if the lease requires consent to transfer from the freeholder, it would be unusual for a lender to agree unless the consent is "not to be unreasonably withheld".
Other things that lenders require - for similar reasons:
* Providing notification to the freeholder of the lenders charge on the property, regardless of whether the lease requires it.
Different lenders have different criteria, hence the reason why there is a "Part 2" of the Lenders Handbook that guides conveyancers.
For the Halifax Part 1+2 can be found at
https://lendershandbook.ukfinance.org.u ... s/halifax/For Halifax Loans Ltd:
https://lendershandbook.ukfinance.org.u ... loans-ltd/My money is on an inexperienced admin person working in a conveyancing factory who seems to think that 5.8.5 of the Halifax bit of the Handbook means that Halifax won't lend on a lease+share of freehold where there are more than 4 units. Section 5.8.5 is to handle the scenario where the freehold is directly owned jointly by the leaseholders.
This doesn't apply where there are more than 4 units, (as previously stated) it is not possible to register more than 4 owners on a title at HM Land Registry, so its 99.9% certain that any freehold covering more than 4 units is owned by a company or a trust.
My advice to anyone selling and especially buying a leasehold property in E&W - use the conveyancing department of a solicitor. It will cost you more than a conveyancing factory, but you get the job done by people who generally know what they are doing, and know what they don't know and will automatically speak to a supervising solicitor when something unusual/different crops up, instead of throwing their hands in the air and/or providing duff information.