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A freehold estate Prima facie includes everything directly beneath the surface of the land and the airspace directly above it (ostensibly without limit in either direction, although the absolute nature of this notion has been tempered in recent times). Consequently, two freeholds should not overlap. However, practitioners should be alive to the existence of a ‘Flying freehold’: this is a freehold property (or part of it) which overhangs (or ‘flies’ above) another freehold property: the latter property, which projects under the flying freehold property, is sometimes known as a ‘creeping freehold’. Today, a long lease would be granted in such a scenario, but flying freeholds (which may have been created many years previously) still crop up regularly. Examples include:

1. •

   balconies

2. •

   archways

3. •

   part of a property above a passageway in a row of houses or above an accessway which leads to a car park area for a modern courtyard housing development

4. •

   basement vaults