drawbacks of leasehold property?

G_M

Purchaser
Vendor
Landlord?

Extra legal costs?

Bit cryptic for us ignorant moneysavers.

Jeffrey_Shaw

G_M wrote: »

Purchaser
Vendor
Landlord?

Yes.

G_M wrote: »

Extra legal costs?

Yes, a little, but could yield large saving (depending on lease length and how obnoxious L proves to be).

m1974m

evoke wrote: »

- Ground rent.

- Service charges.

- Major repairs every few years (in which you have very little say about the cost which can run into thousands)

- Scummy people living above/below you

- Hard to sell if not many years left on lease

- Very expensive to extend lease

- You are effectively renting it

- A lot more restrictions on what you can and cannot do in/on the property

- Much harder to sell than a freehold and, surprisingly, more expensive to sell in terms of the various fess you have to pay

Not many advantages, to be honest, other than it'll be considerably cheaper in the short term to buy than a freehold would be.

I totally agree with these disadvantages of buying leasehold as I experienced nearly all of these issues with a flat I "owned" for the last ten years. I was glad to finally get rid of it but in retrospect I wish I had researched or been told more about leasehold so I could have made better decisions during my "ownership".

sonastin

If it is an old-ish house in the North West, leasehold is virtually the same as freehold. You need to know a) how much the ground rent is and b) whether the vendor has actually been paying it. Some ground rents are so low that it isn't worth the freeholder's while to claim it but in that case you need to know if there are any arrears in case the freehold changes hands to someone more diligent. Chances are the years left on the lease will be measured in the hundreds - probably started at 999 years in the year of build. So really not something to worry about. Local solicitors in the North West won't have any issues with dealing with the lease as leasehold houses are about as common as freehold.

If it is a newish-build, you could have more to be concerned about. Developers are cottoning on to the idea of selling houses with leases more akin to those on flats, i.e. starting at 100 years, high service charges, very restrictive covenants, etc. If it is a fairly new property, it might be worth walking away but for anything over about 10-15 years old its not worth losing a great house over.

The over-priced/won't move issue could be though!

DVardysShadow

Jeffrey_Shaw wrote: »

P could tell V (owner of leasehold) that P will buy leasehold if V serves Notice of Claim (for the f/r) on L (the reversioner).
The leasehold contract stipulates that, on completion, V will assign to P the benefit of the Notice.
On completion, V executes a Deed of Assignment in P's favour. P serves on L Notice of Assignment of the Notice of Claim [still with me, here?] and P can then press ahead without waiting for two years.

the Reversioner? Who is he? Is he R?

And more importantly, what is his role? Raising documents from version <n> to version <n+1> does not seem to fit ...

Jeffrey_Shaw

DVardysShadow wrote: »

the Reversioner? Who is he? Is he R?
And more importantly, what is his role?

The reversioner/landlord (L) is simply the owner of the next estate up- usually the freehold reversion.
For a house, L commonly has virtually no obligations and just receives ground rent.
For a flat, it's much more complex.

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Raising documents from version <n> to version <n+1> does not seem to fit ...

Eh? Please explain!

DVardysShadow

Next estate up? So there could be a hierarchy of reversioners?

Thanks for the explanation so far - I didn't think a reversioner changed the version of anything.

Jeffrey_Shaw

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Next estate up? So there could be a hierarchy of reversioners?

Yes, The most that I've ever seen is three superior layers (freehold reversioner, leasehold reversioner, and underleasehold reversioner), where my client owns a sub-underlease.

DVardysShadow

EG lease on flat over shop from holder of underlease for
shop in a block from holder of lease for block
with freeholder of block as the Supreme Reversioner

I suppose

CarineG

I agree with what everybody else has said. If it's been on the market for 18 months it should ring alarm bells.
There could be something seriously wrong with the property or it is overpriced.

The fact that the Estate Agent and the Vendor say they don't know how long is left on the lease very dubious to me. They cannot not know. They clearly don't want to say it as there is not a lot left on it. If you really want to know, check with the Land Registry.

I would walk away now. This will only give you problems and I am sure there is another nice property waiting for you somewhere...