Buying Freehold

ianbrown

Hi,
was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction....

I bought a house last year which is a new build and therefore leasehold.

The ground rent is £250 per annum and the lease is for 250 years.

Other than running straight to a solicitor does anyone know how to find the cost of buying the lease and how hard the paperwork would be to do myself?

Thanks

Richard_Webster

I hope you got it significantly cheaper from the builder than slightly older similar freehold houses in the area?

Other may be better than me on this but my initial guess would be that it would cost around 30 times the ground rent.

ianbrown

Ouch!!

Thought it may be around 4k - although that was a figure from thin air!

How do I go about getting the ball rolling?

motherofstudents

Sorry I can't help with your question but my ground rent is £5.50 a year so would it still be around 30 times that ?

sonastin

I had a ground rent of £50 per year and bought my freehold for (I think) £1350 with about 992 years remaining on the lease. I did the legals myself but it was heavy going. I've got more experience of legalese these days so I'd probably find it easier now but in hindsight, it would have been worth asking a solicitor what they would charge. I just assumed it would be more than was worth paying but I underestimated the effort involved. As a minimum, get yourself a book on conveyancing to ease yourself into it.