Purchasing the freehold

[userxx]

Hi,

Is it worth purchasing the freehold on a property with a 960 year long lease? I'm unsure of the cost yet, and I only pay £35 per year at the moment. If anyone has experience, please can you point me in the right direction.

Thanks

We did because the freeholder offered to all four flats in the building. Saved them doing the maintenance and we are now in control. I cannot remember how much it cost and we didn’t actively pursue it. I think you can soothe her the freeholder if you wish to establish what it would cost.

I would, when we sold our house last summer the estate agent said a lot of people will only consider freehold properties now! If it’s not too much then I would in case you want to sell at some point

We are in the process of buying it for the house we are buying. We had completely discounted the property as was leasehold and only viewed as the agent said we might as well as we were viewing one on the next road. It had been on the market for over a year as lots of people felt the same It is costing us approx £2000 - £500 for conversation of the lease, £300 for our sols fees and £1200 for the leaseholders sols fees! (You have to pay these too.) I still think it is well worth it though.

soothe her!!! contact the freeholder....

@makingithappen Christ almighty that's a lot of money!! I'm looking into the cost at the money. I didn't realise leasehold puts potential buyers off, I didn't think anything of it but it's a long lease and I'll be well gone before it could become an issue.

OP, if it's a leasehold house then although the lease length isn't a problem, it's probably not a bad thing to do as the government is very anti leasehold houses at the moment so they may become increasingly less attractive in the market.

Thanks everyone, I'll take on board what you've said.

It depends where you are. If it's a leasehold house in the north of England, that's very common.

Leasehold property in West Yorkshire here. We panicked a bit when we found it was leasehold before buying but as a pp said, it's commonplace in some areas and the solicitor couldn't see what we were concerned about. Ours is a 900 yr plus lease and is £1.50 (??!!) Per year plus £10 per yr for a parking space. The previous owners of the house had converted the loft and 2 sets of neighbours have extended. I do know that permission was sought from the freeholder for each, but was given in each case with no issues. We asked for permission to put up a fence, which was given with no problem. Our house was built in 1906 and my sister lives in a much newer one which is leasehold and was told to take a fence down by the freeholder though. I think there must be a difference between builders of a newer estate owning the free hold and the situation we have perhaps. Check with a solicitor locally would be my advice.

Yep, its the North West.

Bluesheep - Permission for fences????? I've recently had a new patio, shed and fences replaced. Should I have asked permission. Ooops.

Hi op, sorry I didn't mean to alarm you, I have to admit, the freeholder was a bit nonplussed when we asked about the fence, plus as I said, the loft in ours has been converted and some neighbours have extended but I know they asked / notified and it was fine. I know that my sister's fence issue was with a 10 year old approx property. They bought the house with the fence there and then we're told it had to come down. Fence was at the front of the property and was not a boundary one.

Phew!!! I had visions of digging up my lovely new patio and putting the old flags down :).

I also hadn't read your op properly and hadn't realised you already owned the house, (full of cold) sorry, thats why i mentioned solicitor- I would've worded my reply better/more clearly.

No worries Bluesheep. I will wait to see the cost involved in the purchase, it might be totally unmanageable anyway.

Who is the freehold owner? I used to work for a council and we'd bought the freeholds from the local big family years before for almost nothing. We used to sell the freeholds for £50 (but it was nearly 30 years ago).

costing us approx £2000

That makes me want to cry.

Two years ago I contacted the freeholders of my property (93 years left on lease) and they wanted £12,000 to bump it up for 57 more years.

God knows what they want now. Probably both kidneys and my eternal soul in addition to an extortionate amount.

cries some more

Sorry should have given more detail. £2000 is on a house with 999 years from 1934 and the annual rent is currently £1.34. Lots would say we shouldn't bother but we feel happier doing it. We just felt in the grand scheme of buying a property this was just another cost to factor in.

was that for a house? There are very few houses with a lease that short so am guessing the £2k cost is for a much longer lease with low ground rent.

It sounds from your post that you're talking about enfranchisement (possibly of a flat?) with a very short period left - so extending the lease rather than buying the freehold - it's obviously different.

Yes. For a house. And I was very clear that about the length of the lease at that time and how much the freeholders wanted to extend the lease for a specific amount of time.

TBH, your post came across as patronising.

Name change... you don't know what you are talking about and are giving very poor and incorrect advice. If 6ou don't know what you're talking about it would be best not to post