Buying the freehold.. from the crown

daleuk_3

An leasehold apartment I am interested in has no management company. At this time it would appear the company was dissolved. Thus the freehold of the property should have been returned to the crown.

Now what could I do to resolve this situation?

Right to enfranchise?
Right to manage?
Buy the freehold from the crown?
Hope that someone else will buy it?

From what I can find out the cost of buying this freehold would be the sum of the annual ground rents x 15. So 10 apartments (not all are occupied), ground rent is £150 a year (during the first 25yrs). It is a recent conversion (2007) so is in this first period.

£150 x 10 x 15 = £22500 + lots of costs!

If the crown continues to own the freehold, will this damage the value of our leases? assuming we fix the maintenance problem.

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Seperate issue is the maintenance problem. could we just acquire the Right to Manage (RTM).. does anyone know the details of this and aprox cost of doing so?

Thanks!

Fire_Fox

Have you read through the Leasehold Advisory Service website?
http://www.lease-advice.org/publications/

daleuk_3

Yes, but there is so much information and it is quite general. After some opinions really on what to do.. it all seems very legal and that is usually very costly! I understand that there are things I cannot acquire if the property freehold is with the crown...? all so complicated!

Fire_Fox

Yes, you will either need to pay for a lot of legal advice OR to do a lot of homework yourself and probably a bit of both! I would be surprised if you read anything on the LEASE website that doesn't come in handy somewhere along the line, especially if you are considering either RTM or setting up a managment company once you own a share of the freehold.

Have you run a search on the board? There have been a number of previous queries about RTM and share of freehold. Leasehold properties are fraught with rights/ responsibilities/ legislation, if you aren't interested in research then you should look elsewhere.

Doozergirl

You don't own this flat. It is presently unmortgageable - if you need a mortgage then you can do nothing.

The management company and freeholder can be two separate entities. If the management company dissolves, it would be the freeholder who manages. If the freeholder is genuinely absent then this is where my knowledge becomes very little. My understanding has been that the crown would hold it on behalf of the freeholder - if they resurfaced then they would be due any money from lease extensions or enfranchisement. The best thing for future resale would be to purchase the freehold but I understand that this can be a very long process without an existing freeholder.

Whether you can take the RTM - I'd guess you could but a phonecall to the LAS will help you - but you need cash to buy otherwise this is all theory.You cannot purchase a freehold if you don't have the lease - it would have to be the leaseholders really when the freeholder is absent. And you can't satisfy a mortgage lender without some kind of management in place.

Really complicated stuff and not something I'd want to buy unless it was very cheap indeed.

zet_2

daleuk wrote: »

An leasehold apartment I am interested in has no management company.

The right to get your freehold is a fantastic idea, and will hopefully finally bring Britain into the modern world.

However, the current implementation is really pathetic and is stacked in favour of the current freeholder. Unless there are only a handful of flats in the building, organising enfranchisement will become your full-time hobby.

You could always buy a house instead?

Fire_Fox

zet wrote: »

The right to get your freehold is a fantastic idea, and will hopefully finally bring Britain into the modern world.

However, the current implementation is really pathetic and is stacked in favour of the current freeholder. Unless there are only a handful of flats in the building, organising enfranchisement will become your full-time hobby.

You could always buy a house instead?

It's not how many flats there are in the block that count, it's what proportion of the flats are occupied by leaseholders who are interested in how the property is managed. BTL blocks are a very different animal from those occupied by retired lifers and/ or thirty-something professionals.

zet_2

Fire_Fox wrote: »

It's not how many flats there are in the block that count,

Well it is, in the practical sense that if there are two or three of you, you can meet up once a week and have a cup of tea and go through the latest rounds of paperwork. If there are thirty or one hundred of you, then you have a major organisational task on your hand holding everything together.

Countries where commonhold-type arrangements are the norm do seem to manage though, as long as enough people are willing to take their turn as committee secretary.