Thank you for your email which is receiving our attention. We will get
back to you with a response as soon as we can.

If your email is a request for information, it will be handled under the
Freedom of Information Act and we will aim to provide you with a response
as soon as possible, but at least within the 20 working days specified in
the Act.

Dear Ms Kinder

Thank you for your request for information regarding 37 Chester Terrace
which has been answered under the Freedom of Information Act. You asked:

·         What percentage of the freehold of this property is currently
owned by the Crown Estate?

·         In what year did the company, 37 CT LLP, acquire part of the
freehold?

·         What percentage of the freehold did 37 CT LLP immediately
acquire and has this increased since the initial acquisition date?

·         What sum did 37 CT LLP pay to purchase part of the freehold? Has
37 CT LLP paid any further sums to the Crown Estate or to any other entity
in relation to the freehold since that payment?

·         Has the freehold of 37 Chester Terrace been professionally
valued? If so, please provide me with the valuation.

·         Following the liquidation of 37 CT LLP in January 2017, what has
happened to its share of the freehold?

I can confirm that the freehold of 37 Chester Terrace is entirely owned by
The Crown Estate and always has been, although the property has been the
subject of a long lease. The lease was bought by 37 CT LLP in May 2007 via
a private sale. 37 CT LLP then extended the lease in September 2011 such
that it expires in June 2150. 37 CT LLP sold the lease in August 2014.

We have no information about whether 37 CT LLP have gone into liquidation
in 2017 but at that time they didn’t hold the lease, having sold it in
2014.

In view of this history, some of your questions are not applicable. The
documentary history of the transactions is held at the Land Registry and
so have been withheld under section 21 of the Act in that it is available
to you by other means.

You can find out if a property is registered, find the owner, how far its
general boundaries extend and whether it is at risk of flooding by
ordering an official copy of the register. There is a fee – for example a
copy of the title register for a property is currently £3.

[1]https://www.gov.uk/search-property-infor...

You can get copies of title deeds from the Land Registry for any given
property. There is a fee and currently each deed document costs £7.

[2]https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about...

The freehold valuation of 37 Chester Terrace is completed annually, but
the disclosure of valuations of Crown Estate property would prejudice our
commercial interests in that they would adversely affect any commercial
negotiations with a third party for a future sale or lease on that or a
similar property if the counterparty to those discussions were to know the
value we placed on it. Consequently, that valuation has been withheld
under section 43 of the Act.

When applying section 43, it is necessary to consider whether the public
interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in
disclosing the information. We recognise that there is a legitimate public
interest in our property holdings, but the disclosure of this specific
detail would prejudice our commercial interests because it would provide
an unfair advantage to those persons with whom we would be holding
commercial negotiations related to this, or similar, properties. As the
revenue surplus of The Crown Estate goes to the public purse, we believe
that the public interest in maintaining commercially robust outcomes in
terms of future Crown Estate revenue outweighs the public interest in
making public this particular detail.

If you are not satisfied with my response, you may complain or appeal our
decision, which will be investigated through an Internal Review. If you
are not content with the outcome of the Internal Review, you have the
right to refer your complaint directly to the Information Commissioner for
a decision. Please note that the Information Commissioner cannot make a
decision unless you have first exhausted our own complaints procedure.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Martin Brazier
Knowledge Manager

1 St James's Market, London, SW1Y 4AH
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7851 5259
[3]www.thecrownestate.co.uk [4][IMG]

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