Freehold & Ground Rents

In process of winding up my late fathers estate we've discovered he owned the freehold on 6 properties in Dublin, which presumably he acquired at the same time he bought one of the houses, though I am not sure. He certainly never collected any ground rents.

I realise they're not worth much and the leaseholders have the rights to buy them out. The query I have is that one of the leaseholders seems to have recently acquired the freehold by application to the Land Registry.

Have done a bit of googling and I understand there are requirements to place ads in newspapers etc to locate long lost freeholders but given my fathers name was on the deeds it ought to have been fairly easy to locate his executors.

The query I have is does anybody know if we have any comeback to the Land Registry - ie can we claim the nominal value of them?

In order to acquire the freehold title to a property the leaseholder has to adhere to a strict procedure.If he has done that game over.
I purchased a commercial property freehold last year and had to advertise and attend a hearing with the County Registrar.However residential is a much easier process.