ground rent - How far can it be back dated??

cheeky

Hi we have a leasehold property and have never been billed for ground rent. At the beginning of June we received 3 invoices for ground rent going back 3 years - all due date 1st January 2004, 1st January 2005 and 1st January 2006. The invoice date for all of them is 30th May 2006.

They have now sent us a "final notice prior to legal action" letter, just 6 weeks after the 1st letter. Its alot of money too, £500!

Can they back date this number of years? Can they also demand all the money in one go??

Thanks for the advise.

BobProperty

I think you have 6 years to claim to enforce a debt and with property and things like ground rent it may be longer. Unfortunately, I think the answer is yes to both your questions. I was in a similar situation, I never paid the ground rent for years (partly cos it was about £2 and they kept offering to sell it me for about £300) and eventually they got fed up with waiting for their money and threatend to take me to court. I ask a solicitor and said surely it's not worth them chasing me for £8 (or whatever it was) and he said pay it or they can take you to court and charge you the costs (and presumably at the end of the day, attach that to the property so you'd have to pay up when you sell).

cattie

Did you never ever query why you hadn't been billed for ground rent over all these years?

The first leasehold I owned stated that ground rent was payable half yearly, along with the smallish service charge. After over 7 months with no invoice I contacted the managing agents as I became concerned at not being billed. I was told they were a bit late sending them out & I'd receive it within the next few weeks.

As you no doubt knew from when you bought the property that the ground rent was due each year ,they will no doubt expect you to pay the whole amount due as you are actually in arrears. Really you should have kept the money to one side ready for when you were finally billed.

As Bob says, not worth risking being taken to court over. Remember if you infringe the terms of your lease the freeholder could technically apply for your lease to be terminated. :eek: Ok, perhaps not likely to happen, but why risk getting on the wrong side of your freeholder.?

cheeky

thanks for comments - my last property was leasehold and they never collected the ground rent either i was never the wiser. All very easy to say now "you should of kept the money to one side"

Heyho - will call them and offer £125 per month

boy_3

Sorry no offense here. You 'own' a house but can't spare £500? That's just no forward planning at all. I can see where this country is going with people relying on mortgage and loans to live the life. Don't you have any savings?

cheeky

no offense taken! I never said we couldnt afford it - i just object to being sent 3 years of bills for 500 quid out of the blue, with no explaination and 6 weeks later being threatened with legal action!

I called the company and its their fault - they never realised ours and the house next door were on the site!!(lease has changed hands) She was quite appolgetic and said she would send a email to credit control and agree a repayment plan.

clutton_2

the most they can legally claim is 6 years worth - whether it has been demanded or not. A payment plan seems to be the way forward. Some ground rent companies send you letters which APPEAR to be legally binding documents but which are most definitly not - do have it checked out by CAB or a solicitor before paying it all.

good luck

boy_3

cheeky wrote:

She was quite appolgetic and said she would send a email to credit control and agree a repayment plan.

Just make sure "credit control" department doesn't apply 'can't pay, so asked spread' policy as that could involve reporting to credit agencies as well. That's why my first post about why spread it. I agree that it's all their fault, but be careful that you don't get more hassle because of it. If they are apologetic, probably get that in written and just pay it in one go.