Does anyone know anything about rentcharges?

[Itscurtainsforyou]

I have a freehold house in the NW (England) that has a rent charge/chief rent on it of just under £5/ year.

I want to redeem it but can't find the deed that set it up in the first place in my deeds. The solicitor returned all deeds to me after I bought it so doesn't hold a copy either.

Will the land registry have a copy?

Ordinarily, if you're paying ground rent you'll have a long leasehold property (pretty standard here in the NW). Yes, the Land Registry should hold a copy of the leasehold title (yours) and the freehold title which will have details of who owns the freehold and to whom you should pay ground rent.

When you say redeem it, do you mean pay it up to date?

Ah I think we may have our wires crossed. My property is freehold, but there's a weird thing around here where some areas still have to lay a rent charge / chief rent.

It's set up when the land is sold to the developers I think - which makes it harder to track down details.

Apparently with this we can pay 16x annual rent to redeem the charge (not have to pay again), but I need a copy of the original agreement to do this (which I don't have).

Haven't come across that. As a freeholder you own the land (and the property) so whats the rent for? We're also in the NW - all the properties we've owned have been long leasehold (999 years) and we've always paid ground rent / chief rent to a management company appointed by the freeholder. This house is £4 a year (1930s semi).

Yeah I'd never come across it before I moved here - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rentcharges

This here suggests the land registry has the documents. You must know who you pay to.

I know who I pay it to (a management company) but they so far will not provide me with the information unless I pay them £££

To be honest, it's probably not worth buying it out - it's under £5 and it's not as though there is a lease which can be forfeited. There must be money in it for the company who now own the chief rent or they wouldn't bother going to the trouble of collecting small amounts from lots of different homeowners. I'm not sure the ownership details can be withheld from you though - worth contacting the LR to find out.