Very annoyed,leasehold shorter

continualdiamond

I posted yesterday about this, but now im really annoyed. Flat im buying advertised with 75 year lease left, got told yesterday it only has 69 years left. Vendor can't afford to extend lease. Solictor said all should be ok still but contact mortgage company and tell them, doing the right thing etc.

Rang mortgage company (yorkshire building society) they're not happy. When our mortgage ends (35 years) 35 years of the lease must remain. So it falls 1 year short........at this point i wanted to scream.

Has this ever happened to anyone before? How can a property be advertised with a longer lease?

Thankfully because its a mortgage offer, i will incur no fees to reduce the mortgage term (can breath normally now). Im reducing it by 2 years so we can get the mortgage but then when i've lived at the place 2 years extend it myself.

continualdiamond

Apologies didn't realise my post from yesterday had more posts on, i could of replied on my orginal post.

I read the comment that i should reduce my offer, but if i do that will the vendor pull out?

My offer accepted was £82000, it was on the market at £84950, but she'd already reduced the price (i dont know what it was on the market at then). My valuation came back at £82000 based on the assumption of a 70 year lease,so really im not over paying, now that the lease has emerged at 69.

What do people think?

alanobrien

I think if the lease was advertised as longer that it actually is you have room to negotiate.

Depending on the freeholder a lease extension can be painless or painfull. Personally i would insist the lease was extended or walk away, there are always other properties to buy.

continualdiamond

Sadly my bf and i are FTB's so other properties to buy are so not an option for our price range. We viewed like 10 properties at £82000 or less and nothing compares to this place.

We just cant afford to walk away, we've paid our £405 for the house valuation, paid our search fees, if we pulled out, we wouldn't look to buy for like another year, would set us back a lot.

Voyager2002

OK, but you can bluff. Say (through the agent) that your mortgage lender is unhappy that the lease is shorter than you had been told; that you will therefore incurr additional expenses; that you therefore need a discount to cover your own additional costs. The vendor has been caught out telling porkies, and is doubtless delighted to be selling to FTBers -- she won't have to wait while you sell your place, and so forth. So see what you can get.

continualdiamond

I see, thanks for those tips, will try them tomorrow, i definately want some sort of compensation so to speak.

silvercar

We viewed like 10 properties at £82000 or less and nothing compares to this place.

Why? This one must be cheaper for a reason. The reason seems to be a lease that needs extending. Make sure you are not overpaying for what you are getting. In two year's time what will it cost you to extend the lease? Can you afford it? If you don't get the lease extended you will have problems trying to sell.

Alarm bells should be ringing if this seems to good to be true. £405 is not a lot of money to lose if it saves you being saddled with a home you can't sell.

Doozergirl

The fact that you're a year short will resound with other potential buyers and really reduce the vendor's potential for a sale.

I agree with what Voyager2002 has said; you really should be screwing the price down, with good reason.

kazonuk

sorry to hear about this

do you know how much it would cost to renew the lease?

i have had a similar (ish) experience myself.

I bought a flat 2.5 yrs ago with a lease of only 68 yrs, now at the time i didn't see this as a problem as my mortgage lender and solicitor didn't even flag it as a problem. Me also being a FTB meant i didn't really understand the implications of a short lease.

Anyway to cut a long story short about 12 months ago i decided i wanted to move up the property ladder and sell the flat, it was then when i had the various estate agents giving me valuations when it became clear that a 66/67 yr lease really wasn't attractive.

When i approached the leaseholder for a lease extension they plucked the absolute outrageous figure of £17,000 to change the lease to 117 remaining. This was well beyond what i thought was fair or i could borrow so i had to reduce the asking price of my property to reflect the shortish nature of the lease. (I have recently got the premium down to £12,000 but still think its excessive, the Leasehold advisor service estimate the premium should be roughly £7000-£8000).

Anyway i have now hopefully sold the property (to some cash investors who are planning to rent the place out, and don't care about the 66 yr remaining term) but i have made a huge loss on this place so with hindsight I should have definitely asked how much it would cost to renew the lease.

You say you don't want to lose your valuation fee, but if i could turn the clock back 2.5 yrs i would have gladly walked away only losing the valuation.

I wish you all the best

Woby_Tide

please please please get this checked out. Ilive in a town with a now notorious freeholder with horrendous lease terms. A lot of previous solicitors ahve left people with horrendous obligations they didn't realise were enclosed in teh lease at 20 year intervals. One friend has recently sold after a 4 year legal argument with the solicitors they bought via at a net loss of £5k on the flat price after compensation. various clauses increasing ground rent has left a lot of similar owners ina terrible position, Not saying ths is the ssme but with any leashold place, double check everything, in the long run it will always pay off

F_T_Buyer

Just reduce your offer to £80828.571428571428571428571428571, i.e. 69/70

Then reduce your mortgage term by one year.

Simple.

If they say no, they falsely advertised the property. Entirely fair IMHO.