Buying a house with rentcharge

[Fizzsage]

Hi all, we're about to buy a house with an estate rentcharge (it's freehold but you pay service charge towards maintaining roads, landscaping etc as it's unadopted by the council).

We're in the process of getting a deed of variation issued to remove the ability to put a lease or reclaim the property in the event of non payment but I'm concerned there will be other gotcha clauses in the transfer or some other archaic law that will surface and make this house unsellable, losing all its value and thus all out life's savings.

Would you buy a property like this? Or if you live in one with an estate rentcharge would you caution against or support it??

Just don't want to make a huge mistake because the house is pretty.

Any words of wisdom, support or advice would be truly appreciated.

We had a hideous experience with a rent charge. In the end our not very competent solicitor told us if we bought it would be against her advice.

We imagine a better solicitor would have solved the issue BUT what if any future buyer had an equally conservative conveyancer.

We lost our sale, and it took 18 months to resell. But still think we did the right thing.

PS our solicitor was very good really - but clearly when it got too complicated about the rent charge she just said don't do it, instead of trying to solve it.

We pay £100 a year for the communal areas and roads. There's 20 thousand houses in the development so it's very professional

Also - I think the issue was in part because rentcharges are often regional and local solicitors who conveyance them more frequently may be better at dealing with them.

@Beninthesortingoffice why did they advise you against it? Was it because you couldn't get a deed of variation or some other reason?

@gogohm thanks! So it hasn't put you off or the other 20k houses! Have your fees increased massively over time?

I imagine the situation is different.

My understanding is that there are two types of rentcharges - one for estate management and one just because.

The house we were trying to buy had both types - in an area where very few houses have them - and with a title that was poorly worded and unclear.

Oh and the rentcharge owner was a now defunct company so we would be buying the house with arrears.

The seller offered an indemity policy but wasn't able to untangle it.

Ah ok, thanks @Beninthesortingoffice. I'm not 100% sure my solicitor understands this aspect of property law and we've been having to drive everything. I think that's why I feel more panicked- don't feel very advised on the whole thing.