Has your house lease expired - or is it due to soon?- elderly man forced to rent their house that they've paid their mortgage off

[cakeorwine]

‘I was told to pay £212,000’: property owners face huge bills when lease is due to expire | Leasehold | The Guardian

An elderly man bought a house with a lease. Paid their mortgage off but then the lease expired.

The company that owns the lease then said they should pay to rent on his property (albeit below the market rate)

Someone else tried to extend their lease which had 11 years left on it.

Because the property had increased in value, the cost of extending it would be £210,000. At the age of 86.

I have a lease and I know that it there is a cut off point of 80 years left - when the marriage value kicks in which increases the cost of extending the lease.

There is talk of a bill to look at Leases - it can't come soon enough.

"Lawyers for the freeholders who own the freehold to Goddard’s property did not respond to requests for comment."

Thanks OP for this thread - it's reminded me to check the remaining term on my lease which is about 89 years. I am generally aware of the concept and first looked into extension a couple of years ago, but it's the kind of thing that (for me at least) tends to fall by the wayside and get forgotten if it doesn't need dealing with immediately...

They would have been told how many years were left on the lease, whether it was explained properly to them, ensuring they understood, is another matter. Unlikely their solicitor has kept their file after all this time.

Ok, I was trying to giving the profession the benefit of the doubt but the fact still remains people don't properly understand and there are still some total shites out there.

This is the point of the thread.

I am sure that there are leaseholders on here and maybe some people whose parents are leaseholders and who might not be aware of the implications of this, especially around renewing a lease and the marriage value.

I only knew about 80 years because I had read some articles. Looking at my 125 yr lease expiring in 2114, I wouldn't have worried. But it's 2034 when I need to renew it before the marriage value kicks in.

And that's not too long to go

This is why we bought the leasehold when we did some extension work years ago. We were advised that if we didn't, we would have to pay for the freeholder's solicitors fees to ok the building work we were doing, so we thought it would be easier to just own the freehold - it was years ago, but we just added it to the loan we were taking out. TBH I only thought of it at the time because my parents had bought their freehold too years before that. I hadn't even considered the leasehold aspect and I don't remember it being discussed with the solicitor when we bought the house.

Exactly! It's the sort of thing that can very easily be forgotten. When I bought my flat there was over 100 years left on the lease...

It’s a crazy system. I deliberately only considered buying a freehold property, and will never buy a leasehold. It really cut down on my options but buying leasehold didn’t seem worth the risk.

I don't really need to renew my lease for me - assuming I plan to live here forever!!

But DS might want some inheritance

Yes, it does make things unnecessarily complicated! But as a first time buyer in central London, my options to buy freehold were somewhat lacking. I would not buy a leasehold place in future.

Jeez, you're determined to labour this aren't you 🙄

I agree, bonkers system of land tenure. We had feudal tenure in Scotland but it was abolished and we have simple tenure now

Ive read the whole article now and see that the people in the article bought a very long time ago, so they wouldnt have got the property cheap due to a low lease

I am not in favour of the leasehold arrangement, in particular for houses

But, but, when you pay your mortgage off you get notification of the ownership if you like, confirming all the details, and within that is the fact that there is a lease on the property, is there no curiosity in someone that thinks 'I wonder what will happen when the lease on my house runs out'

Is there no curiousity to that at all?

I do think its buyer beware, he was aware that he was paying someone all these years for ground rent or service charge, who did he think these people were and what they meant to his property

Same as the woman in the flat, leasehold flats come with leasehold arrnagements. When she paid her mortgage off all those years ago why didnt she seek to extend the lease or move if she didnt like that, what did thes epeople think was going to happen to their property

If you're happy to pay rent for x number of years then thats fine, you dont need to renew the lease, the rent may be cheaper than remortgaging or spending your savings on the rnewal

If you want to pass something down or use it as collateral if you needed care then you'll lose that without renewing your lease

Im reading this thread backwards so sorry I missed this post

Im really quite astounded you say you didnt know about those things

I bought a leasehold flat as my first property when I was in my early 20s, I researched what a leasehold meant, when I was looking at properties I researched what a marriage value was and the calculations for extending. This is pre internet days, I had to buy 'a book' (remember them!)

I knew that as time ticks on the value of the flat is lined up with the length of the lease.

This is really on you if you just put your head in the sand.

Well good for you.

I saw 125 years.

And you will have read that I know I have 90 years left on it.

And how many people do you think who have leaseholds are aware of these things?

1 in 5 properties are leasehold.

Luckily we were able to get on the housing ladder cheaply and bought a freehold. When moving I've only considered freeholds and at the risk of sounding stupid I don't really understand why certain properties are leasehold. Flats, yes but why are some houses?

If you own a house could you sell it as a leasehold and retain ownership of the land? I suppose I'm just confused by how it happens.

I agree leasehold is a horrible system and should be banned. But, I have limited sympathy for anyone who doesn’t do their research. Buying a house is a big deal, surely most people clue themselves up on the regulations and systems involved?