Buying a leasehold house, is it worth it?

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We are viewing a lovely house this week that ticks a lot of boxes for us, however it is leasehold. Is that just a headache? According to RM only one other property on the street in leasehold. I’ve read we’d have to live there for 2 years before we could ask to buy the freehold.

Is buying a freehold a nightmare? Is the price based on whatever the ground rent is? (Unknown at this stage) If it’s relatively simple and won’t cost crazy money I can take it into account budget wise but if it’s a total headache it might be a bad idea!

My ex & I bought a leasehold new build. The ground tent was fixed at £75 but I had to pay £450 a year for buildings insurance (not contents, just buildings).I was lucky that the ground rent was fixed. It was a 99 year lease.

When I can to sell the house I had 84 years left on lease. I had to buy the freehold which cost £4500. Again I was lucky it wasn’t double or triple that.

During my time in my house if I’d wanted to put up a shed, greenhouse, conservatory, porch I would have had to get the leaseholders permission and paid for that permission.

I would never buy a leasehold property again.

You really need to see the details of the lease before deciding whether to purchase.

I have a leasehold house. I can buy the freehold but it's definitely cheaper to just pay the £3.77 per year for the next 900 years left on the lease!

I bought a 1930s leasehold house 14 yrs ago, with no concerns. Lease 999 yrs, ground rent £2.63 a year and each year freehold has been offered to me for £300, but never bothered as GR is so low. No restrictive covenants either.

House was put on market in Dec, sale agreed on it in a week. Buyers have no concerns over the GR or the fact it's leasehold.

Leasehold modern builds are often a scam and owners end up unable to sell their house.

This seems different as it's old. You will have a right to buy the leashold and there is a formula for how much it is.

Ask your solicitor to get a copy of the lease for you and go from there. Do you know who the property management company who own the lease are?

OP some of the comments on here are a bit off.

Leasehold has gained a really poor reputation over the last few years on account of NEW leasehold properties and the way house builders sold off the freehold / put onerous clauses into the leases that house buyers weren't aware of.

They are very different to OLD leasehold properties. OLD leasehold properties were / are very common in some parts of the country - we are in the NW and the 6 or 7 houses we've bought over the years have all been OLD leasehold. The leases are usually 999 years from the turn of the century / 20s / 30s and the ground rent is always fixed at some nominal sum (maximum has been 4 pounds). There are no onerous restrictions - I think one required us to seek permission for an extension which cost 100 pounds - but that's it. There was absolutely no advantage to buying the freehold.

As you have said, you need to see the lease and understand it properly. Your solicitor should be able to advise you.

Don't listen to everyone. It depends on circumstances. I have a house built in the 1920's that is leasehold. It's a 999 year lease (so tantamount to freehold) and the ground rent is nominal.

A house with a variable service charge (particularly if you have no control over the amount) however is a very different proposition and like many pp I would not touch with a barge pole.

I own around 250 leasehold titles, ie I'm the person that gets your ground rent. Is it worth buying a leasehold house? Well yours is a victorian terrace so it's very likely a 999 Yr lease at around £1.50-2.50 per annum. So if you pay your rent annually you will have no problem. Almost all old lease docs contain clauses which big companies can use to harvest more from you annually, either by insurance or inspection. However as a private owner, I don't have time to sort this kind of thing out. A search may bring up who owns your lease. If they're anything like me they will be willing to sell. I wouldn't worry, yes there are lots of scare stories around at the moment, however these apply to leasehold properties and flats which have been built in the last 2-3 decades. The government is making moves to ban them. Old leases like yours are usually simple to deal with and purchase if you want to. Just make sure you ask your solicitor or conveyancer to make sure ground rent payment is up to date and that if there is any form of extension or loft conversion, permission has been sought, paid for and granted by the freeholder. If you can't trace the freeholder you can take out an indemnity policy for six times the annual ground rent.

You can find out the formula for roughly working out the FH cost via google. It takes into account the length of lease, the ground rent, and the current value of the property.

We bought a freehold, but it was for a flat, one of just 2 Edwardian maisonettes, and the other owner didn’t want to buy hers so we ended up buying the whole thing.

From experience you do need a specialist solicitor. We originally used the one who was handling the purchase, but he frankly hadn’t much of a clue - the specialist I found later was much better.

Totally depends. Get hold of the lease and call a company called Leasehold Doctors. They will be able to give you an idea of the cost of the freehold. There will also be legal costs involved in the process. You should also ask vendors about it-is ground rent actually collected, do they have contact with freeholder, are they reasonable etc. We bought the freehold of our building with other 2 leaseholders and freeholders were a nightmare but capitulated the day before the case went to tribunal - they wanted more than we were willing to pay (which was fair price). They were horrendous scammy landlords though with hundreds of greejolds in London.

How long is the lease? Ours is balance of 999 years from 1892. Ground rent is £1.45!

You do have to pay it - long arrears can trigger some kind of legal action - but it’s not worth trying to buy the freehold, even if they’d sell it for a mid-terrace, as the house will be long gone by 2891

In our case the ground rent hadn’t been demanded or paid for over 6 years. The FHolder was supposedly ‘absent’ but he wasn’t, just hiding under another name a few miles away,,because of debts attached to the FH.
Despite having been in hiding, so to speak, and having not demanded GR from the previous owner for over 6 years (I had to use a tracing service to find him) he claimed that he had, and we were obliged to pay it. So unless it’s a peppercorn, or very low, do check on that.

We have a leasehold house with approx 900 years left on it, ground rent of £3 per year. However we have no idea who owns the actual lease and have never been asked for it. We’d buy it but we don’t know who to buy it from!