Local council as leaseholder

wessexw

Just looking at the lease of leasehold property I'm buying at the moment and the leaseholder is the mayor and burgess of the London council where the property is situated. Is it common in London to have the council as the leaseholder? Is there anything special or different about this kind of setup that I'd need to know about?

BitterAndTwisted

It is if the property was originally bought from the council via the Right To Buy. Is it a flat in a large development? Ask your solicitor to check very thoroughly the council's future plans for maintenance/refurbishment as the costs of these can be astronomical

wessexw

No, it's a converted Victorian flat on a residential street. So really this property might be ex council? Or could it be like in some of the Garden Cities where the council holds the lease on all properties?

dander

There are some bits of London that were built as early social housing and they can be very normal looking victorian streets, so it is possible that it's to do with that. I'm also thinking about how a lot of land in London is owned by the Duke of Westminster - and I don't know if he's the only one or if there are other patches of ground that are held in the same way. If it's a garden suburb or something of that kind, I should think it's also possible that the land has become owned and managed as leasehold, as you say, like the garden cities.

wessexw

You could well be right dander, it's in harringey and the street has the same look about it as other harringey streets which I know were definitely originally social housing. Also a hip I viewed for another harringey property on a street a few miles away was also council leasehold so it must be quite common. My solicitor said that he's going to check out the right to buy on the property so I guess that will tell a lot more

Richard_Webster

As ever I assume that OP means that the Council is the freeholder. The leaseholder is the person who has the lease, normally the person who lives there or rents it out on a short term tenancy.

If the building doesn't look like a Council property sometimes it could just be a random property acquired by the Council in the past for some reason. Possibly a previous owner had let it become a wreck and the Council CPOd it under Housing Act powers or it was required for some scheme of the other that the Council later abandoned and they were left with this odd house.

I was brought up in an Edwardian semi in Wimbledon. The houses in the road were all of similar design, but out of 50 or so, a couple of them were owned by the Council and rented out to Council tenants. It does happen.

wessexw

I asked this some time ago and it looks like Bitter and Twisted was right, my solicitor has found that the council intend doing works to the property in 2 to 3 years tune to the tune of £13k for replacing 3 windows, 2 doors and a bit of facia work.

It's absolutely ridiculous and has really opened my eyes to what a council as a freeholder might get up to, even if this 13k issue gets sorted out I'm now very very dubious about having a council as my freeholder as I fear them dumping some stupid charge on my in the future. I also fear for reselling as I'm learning that councils have a reputation for doing this and that could well scare off any future buyers if they are aware of this.

Has anybody here had a council as their freeholder and what has their experience in this regard been?

Fire_Fox

http://www.lease-advice.org/publications/documents/document.asp?item=20

Just because the council intend to do the work does not mean leaseholders cannot lodge an objection, it is just that you need to frame the objection within the legislation, any provision in your long lease (does it allow for improvements or only maintenance?) and with regard to council procedures. So if the council have only had their trusted contractor quote for the work, you could employ a surveyor to trump that opinion; as you have one coming in anyway and a heads up from the council the obvious time to do this is now.

Once the consultation process starts you can get your own quotes from council approved contractors for the work that your surveyor advises. If the work is currently estimated to cost £13K I'd be looking for a discount of that magnitude from the current leaseholder. Note that under the legislation freeholders are obliged to take note of leaseholder's objections and that costs are supposed to be "reasonable", "reasonably incurred" and work must be of a "reasonable standard". You also have the option of requesting that your lease to be varied as part of the conveyancing so that you only have responsibility for your own windows and doors, and not for a share of the entire block.

wessexw

Thanks firefox, getting the lease rewritten to my benfit could be a good option alright. I'm dubious about having to challange the council on stuff though, from what I've been reading it's not the easiest of processes and chances of success aren't great and I'd rather save myself that potential hassle. I read a case of a woman whose freeholder was Southwark council, they did work upgrading the estate her property was in and sent her a bill of £44k, I don't think thats very reasonable :S.I think if I can't get the lease changed I'll drop this property like the wee hot potato it's turning out to be :S