Freeholders Fees

[scorpiogirly]

Hi all, I will try to keep this as brief as possible.

Mortgage free leasehold house, live here with my daughter.

Was told that the freeholder was selling their interest at auction and was asked if I wanted to buy for 50k. There were 12 years left on the lease! I was shocked as you can imagine and knew nothing of it as I had inherited the house from my mother who passed.

Found a surveyor who negotiated the price to £26k. This has been going on for 2 years.

It has finally come time to pay and their side has added £6k of fees. 3k for their solicitor who has done very little, and the prop management company have added 10% of the sale price plus vat which takes their fees to around 3k also.

Both my solicitor and surveyor have said that these fees are grossly excessive.

Surveyor has mentioned getting tribunal to have the fees assessed but my solicitor is worried that the freeholder will get tired of waiting and pull out of the agreed offer.

I advised my solicitor that I would like to pay under protest - which would give me scope to have the fees assessed after payment but again he has said that to sent that letter along with the payment might get their backs up and may make them pull the offer. Can they do this? I am sure I have read that they would need to issue a default notice if this were the case?

I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place with this. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Firstly is the management company linked to the freeholder?
MC cannot just decide to add 10% arbitrarily.
I don't know the value of your house but 12 years left is very low so make sure you deal with this as a matter of urgency..
If it was me, I'd just pay all the fees bar the 10%. No way I'd pay this.
It is galling to be charged excessive fees but wrangling for another year or more will only wrack up even more fees while the clock ticks!

I am not sure.

The Freeholder is Central Town Properties and the company handling the sale is Pantera Property.

Looking on Companies House it doesn't seem they are connected.
Are you going through the statutory, formal route for your lease extension? Important you do this and not the informal route as spurious changes could be made without you realising.
The MC has absolutely no legal standing to enforce a 10% charge. They are trying it on.
Make sure your solicitor is well versed in the complex lease area as many are not experienced, leaving you with huge (financial) headaches down the line.
Join the National Leasehold Campaign Facebook group for great advice. They are knowledgeable and helpful.
For you reference-
https://www.panteraproperty.com/

Thanks so much.
It is the formal route and is to buy the freehold from them rather than extending the lease.

I am not sure my solicitor has had much experience in this department.

Would you recommend possibly contacting another? I am not sure what to do now as it is at the end of the process really.

That seems relatively cheap to me but then I formally extended the lease on a flat, maybe that does change things.

What’s the approximate value of the house?

The house was valued at 130k about 2 years ago.

Can I ask how many years you had left on the flat and how much roughly it was to extend?

We had approx 60 years left and it cost us about 30 k all in.

We sold just after the extension was done for 200k.

Unfortunately we were dealing with an infamous freeholder. The deals they offered us for an informal extension were scandalous.

Glad you are going the formal route! It seems a pity to have to change solicitor if now near the end stage. However your solicitor should (obviously!) know the law and get tough.
He needs to firmly tell the MC they are absolutely not entitled to claim 10%..and they are not getting it. Full stop!
If you want a couple of names of good leasehold solicitors then pm me. Even if you have a chat with them over the phone to set your mind at rest.

Thanks so much. I will PM you if that is okay.

Even if I have to pay an extra 500 to get the 3k off I'll do it. Its an absolute joke.