Buying Freehold

[readysaltedplease]

Received a letter today from our freeholder offering us, and our upstairs neighbour to purchase the freehold.

Our flat is currently on the market so our initial reaction is we wouldn't get the money spent on purchasing the freehold back as part of the sale so a bit pointless.

However does anyone know, if we both declined to purchase the freehold and they sold it to someone else, could the new owner alter the lease at all?

Ours is a bit unusual that although the property is leasehold we don't have any service charges or ground rent, we just pay a yearly amount for insurance to the freeholder which is one of our key selling points so it could potentially affect a sale if charges were imposed.

Thank you in advance

Just to update i have now got a copy of out original lease and also a copy of the lease extension from 2015 so fingers crossed that will be sufficient when we eventually get a buyer.
Thank you again everyone for all your help on this

Wow, so pleased - such peace of mind for you while you're selling. Where did they turn up?

Good news ready. You will have saved yourself a lot of heartache in the selling process.

[quote readysaltedplease]@ScribblingMilly annoyingly we don't have a copy of the lease apparently it couldn't be located when we purchased so need to try and get a copy from somewhere. It could be a good selling point and the agent has added it to the listing today but I guess it depends what the lease says about changes[/quote]
As others have said, I don’t understand how you were able to complete a purchase of a leasehold property without sight of the lease? How were you able to get a mortgage?
We own a leasehold property and were given a copy of the lease on completion. It’s very useful to have so we can check various details about things. There’s no way we would have got a mortgage without it.
Something not right here, unless you’re not recognising a document you have as a lease.

@ScribblingMilly the solicitor representing the vendor at the time FIL purchased had copies in their file. Not originals but hopefully that won't matter

@ramblingsonthego thank you

@JosephineDeBeauharnais FIL paid for an indemnity policy for the lease being missing when we purchased and our mortgage provider was happy with that

@readysalted Well done for following the trail back - what a palaver though! I'm sure there won't be a problem it being a copy, it's what's in it that counts. Very pleased you got it sorted.