Hello all

Just looking for a bit of advice please.

I own and live in a house which I bought in 2003 on a 25 year mortgage. Since that time I have been paying a tiny ground rent (it’s about £4 semi-annually) to a property management company.

I have received an inheritance recently and decided I would try to find out how much it would cost to obtain the freehold on the land my house is built on and how long is left on the lease. This weekend I sent two separate enquiry emails to the property management firm.

The first reply I received contained a letter saying they want £90 to provide a quote for buying the freehold.

I had only just recovered from the fee they are wanting to send a couple of emails when they responded to my second letter stating that they want £210 to look for the leasehold document to send me a copy from their archives, which they will refund 50% of if they can’t locate it!

So they want £210 to answer a question and £105 not to!

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I ought to proceed?

Many thanks.

Hi

Have a wee look at these links:

https://www.lease-advice.org/faq/i-own-a-leasehold-house-how-do-i-buy-the-freehold/

https://www.gov.uk/leasehold-property/buying-the-freehold

How many years left on the lease you would of known before you bought the house. It will be in the bundle your sent from solicitors

Hi

 

Have a wee look at these links:

 

https://www.lease-advice.org/faq/i-own-a-leasehold-house-how-do-i-buy-the-freehold/

 

https://www.gov.uk/leasehold-property/buying-the-freehold

Thank you! I will read these ASAP.

How many years left on the lease you would of known before you bought the house. It will be in the bundle your sent from solicitors

I don’t recall, but it was 15 years ago. I will contact the solicitors firm I used for conveyancing and see if it is with the deeds, which I know they hold. Thank you.

You dont still have important documents on your house?

Like water reports, sewarge pipes and where they are, copys of the deeds?

You dont still have important documents on your house?

Like water reports, sewarge pipes and where they are, copys of the deeds?

No. I thought it was fairly common practice for the solicitor to store them in a vault.

I mentioned an inheritance. For example I’m dealing with another property at the moment and the solicitor the deceased used to buy their home in 1967 had all that.

you can get the basic documents from the land registry for £3.

That way you can at least contact the freeholder rather than waste your time and money going through someone who has no rights to do or say anything.

Hi, I just wanted to post an update here. I followed the advice above and obtained the name and address of the Freeholder from the Land Registry for £3.

I wrote directly to the Freeholder, explaining that I am the Leaseholder and wish to discuss purchasing the Freehold. I asked the Freeholder to provide me a quotation and terms.

A few days later I received a letter from the property management company in response to my query asking for £90 to provide me with a quotation.

It seems there is no escape from this [problem] property company, even when I try to engage with the Freeholder directly, they foist me off on to them.

I really don't want to pay the property management company anything other than a reasonable administration fee (say, £10-£20). Is the Freeholder entitled to just defer my query to the property management company in this way? Any advice on next steps?

Have you tried one of the following calculators ?...will give you a rough idea.

https://www.freehold-sale.co.uk/freehold-calculator/

Do not pay the middleman a penny...

Andy

Thank you for this! This at least gives me a ball park figure. I don't actually know how many years are left on the lease. I've looked at the Land Registry document examples, and can't find where the length of the lease is stated. I don't want to pay for further documents unless I am pretty confident that they will provide me with the remaining duration of the lease.

Your Conveyancing Solicitor should hold the information re the term...or alternatively...

Download the Office Copy Entry of the Leasehold Title from the Land Registry at this link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/land-registry

The fee is £4.00

Management companies are a rip off by definition.

If you check your service charges accounts you will find items like "environmental discharge fee".

I asked them if that was to pay for carbon they produce when farting or when vomiting manure and I haven't got an answer yet.

Maybe I should have been less direct...

I've just contacted the solicitor who did the conveyancing and they advised me that they don't keep any documents for more than 6 years, and that any documents they had relating to their casework on my house will have been destroyed.

I then completed the online Land Registry form and paid the £3 to see the Title Summary for my Leasehold, and all it told me was information I already have, my name, my mortgage provider, the amount I paid for the house. No reference to the length of the leasehold.

I suppose the next thing I could try would be to see if my mortgage provider has it on record.

Success! I phoned the mortgage lender, and the lease is 999 years from the year the property was built, 1964. So by my maths, there are 942 years left on the lease.

The bit about writing to them confidentially is very clever, but how much should I offer?

The Freehold valuation tool above suggests that with a property worth £100,000, a £9 per year ground rent and 942 year lease, that the Freehold value is 0.

If I were buying a business that generated £9 annual profit, I might offer 10-20 times that value if I wanted to buy it. But I can’t see them accepting £180 for the Freehold.

That depends what its worth to you and the reason you wish to purchase it ...but it must be an offer that is worth while to the freeholder.

Finding out that the lease has 942 years left diminishes my interest somewhat. My original reasons were that it potentially makes the property easier to sell or extend in the future. Plus just the satisfaction of owning the land outright. I should probably do some online research and try and find a case of someone in a similar situation and see what they paid. I think a figure in the low to mid £100s would be acceptable to me.

In that case you have a virtual freehold, so your property price would not substantially increase if you were the landowner.

I would leave things as they are.

I would tend to agree.....as for extending the property..it shouldn't be a problem