Leasehold garage in freehold property

rammster

Have had the HIP through for a freehold 3 bed town house we were going to buy and we found out that the garage is actually leasehold.

This would accrue to 240 pounds extra per annum for the garage.

My concerns are that I was never told this, the property was sold as a freehold. The garage was never mentioned - although we did go down to view it but he never said that this was leasehold.

I have already put in 150 pounds for mortagage application and 250 pounds for conveyancing now (the solicitors are no completion no fee people - abode)

But as a consumer I feel a bit cheated that such an improtant piece of info was not given to me.

This is a 180k town house with 3br, 3ba, garden, kitchen diner, Living room etc. in swindon, it is only 5 yrs old. The garage was under a coachhouse and 1 building away from the property.

Really the alarm bells should have rung in my brain about this a long time ago.

Question is should I go ahead, me and my wife like the property but for 180k I would find a similar property at other place as well.

I think I have been cheated

silvercar

The garage needed to be leasehold if there is another property above it. If you own the freehold you theoretically own the land from the centre of the earth to the sky above, so with a coach house above it would have to be leasehold.

How long is the lease?

Richard_Webster

Is there a service charge as well as ground rent as £240 pa for ground rent for a garage does seem rather over the top?

This is one of these unfortunate situations where the sellers probably forgot or didn't understand the significance of telling the estate agents or OP that the garage was leasehold. It would be important to me - but I am a solicitor. Please don't expect the average seller to understand all this stuff - that' s why they pay people like me!

Also of course this is a case where the HIP company probably should have noticed that the re also a separate leasehold titl efor the garage and included that - but a cheap HIP company wouldn't notice that!

If I had been asked for a quote by the seller at an early stage and the seller told me the garage was leasehold I would have pointed out the importance of explaining that to the buyers - but mostly the solicitors only get involved at a later stage when the damage has already been done.

OP could try seeking a price reduction saying that they wouldn't have offered as much if they had known there was that extra annual cost.

On the other hand (looking at it perhaps from the seller's viewpoint) there must be a lot of things about the house cost wise that the seller won't know yet. For instance does he know for sure how much the annual heating bills will come to/ there could easily be a discrepancy of a lot more than £240 between what he had budgeted for and the actual cost. These are a just all costs that a house buyer has to bear.

rammster

995 years leasehold, breakdown parking 86 pounds , garage 40 pounds , estate 111 pounds - this is the breakdown of the service charge.

silvercar

rammster wrote: »

995 years leasehold, breakdown parking 86 pounds , garage 40 pounds , estate 111 pounds - this is the breakdown of the service charge.

Are you sure that all the estate service charge is for the garage? I have friends on unadopted roads that have service charges for their freehold houses.

What is the parking charge for? If you have a garage, do you need the parking charge?

rammster

I have emailed the estate agent about this to get a clearer picture, its only the garage that is leasehold.

I was going to buy this at 180k, but I will renegotiate to 175 k , failing which I will leave the property and the mortgage. And write 400 pounds off to experience.

loja25

I've just put a deposit down for a New Build, during this process I was told that the Garage is Leasehold and the house is Feehold. I will get my full deposit back if I change my mind within 48 hrs.
I under stand now because of this Forum why this Garage is Leasehold as there is a Coachhouse above it. The lease is £99 ap and there is a service charge of £20 per month for the grounds and parking area.
My query is what are the rules for such leasehold garages?
Do we have rights?
Can the owner sale the leasehold and the new owner change the annual lease?
How difficult would it be to sell the House and Garage in the future?
This is a new build and we got a fantastic price reduction that was negociated the developers have been really helpful and thorough, but my husband has now said we cant buy this house becasue of the Garage, so I just wanted to get it clear in my head and to justify why I have to give up my dream home.
Thank you for your help
Regards

G_M

The rules are..... whatever is written in the lease. Get it out and read it!

No a new owner cannot change it. It's a legally binding document on both the leaseholder and freeholder.

peaches48

Under the Leasehold Reform Act 1967, you have a statutory right to buy the freehold of your 'house' if you meet certain qualifying criteria....
Would this also apply to a Leasehold garage? Perhaps one of the solicitors that write in the Forum could qualify this?

I hope you can. A garage under another property doesn't have to be leasehold. When purchasing a Flat in a block, you can own the freehold of it and pay small cost to communual areas, so why shouldn't you purchase this Garage the same way, hopefully utilising the above Act.
Also, why doesn't the Garage belong to the property sitting above it?

I hope you are to find out more.....

hazyjo

We're in the same boat - buying an 8 year old townhouse with two garages in a separate building behind the house with flats (or maybe one flat) above. There was no mention of them being leasehold on the EA's details and we were pretty annoyed to realise there's an additional service charge twice a year. We just swallowed it as we got a good price and reduction for the house anyway.

It's a common way to do it nowadays it seems with new builds. They often have separate garages with flats above, or a coachhouse type thing where a s/c is due.

We've had nowt but grief with the purchase as the garages were never transferred from the freeholder to the buyers so they had to arrange for a Deed of Variation to prove that they actually owned them and get their name included. It's added 3 months or so to our purchase - been around 5 months so far, and cost the vendors an extra grand or so. Our solicitor said it was unlikely ours was the only one like that on the estate and others had probably been missed too.

Grrrrrr. Frustrating to have 'leasehold' anything - especially when you're spending as much as us! We decided it was a compromise worth making as it was our favourite house by far.

Jx

Richard_Webster

I hope you can. A garage under another property doesn't have to be leasehold. In practice it does because the coach-house above probably straddles 3-4 garages so the coachhouse either has to own the freehold of the whole building or have alease and a separate company owns the freehold of the whole building.

When purchasing a Flat in a block, you can own the freehold of it In practice if you buy the freehold of just your flat you make it and the rest of the flats in the block unmortgageable so don't do it! You might be referring to a a collective purchase of the freehold with other flat owners typically by setting up a company that you collectively own - but it is a complete disaster to buy the freehold of just your flat or garage!

and pay small cost to communual areas, so why shouldn't you purchase this Garage the same way, hopefully utilising the above Act.
Also, why doesn't the Garage belong to the property sitting above it?Possibly one of the garage does belong to the coach-house but the design is usually such that there is more than one such garage!

The reality is that the seller should have told you but frankly this kind of detail is lost on lots of people who sell and they genuinely don't understand what is happening so they are not trying to con you. Yes, it's a pain that the garage is leasehold and you have to pay some kind of service charge but is it really the end of the world?