Buy share of freehold?

sanjayd53 · 14 January 2012 at 11:14AM

Hi All,

Happy new year!

This is my first post, apologies if someone has posted questions similar to this before.

We currently live in a converted 1st floor flat in North London. We've been living here for about 2 years now. The lease has 93 years remaining. We share the building with one other neighbour downstairs. I'm looking to sell the flat in the very near future and thought it might attract more potential buyers if I bought the share of the freehold. It's going to cost us around £4K.

The questions I have are:

1) I am hoping that this purchase would at least add the purchase amount (~4K) back to the property value. Would this be a correct assumption?

2) I also hope that a flat with share of freehold rights would attract more potential buyers. Is this correct?

3) I heard from someone that, sometimes bank hesitate to lend if the property is with a share of freehold. If this was true, it's bad news for me. Any truth in this?

4) Finally, would it be worth buying the share of freehold when I am thinking of selling in the very near future (within the next 6 months)?

Please forgive my ignorance if these are simple questions but I am hoping many kind people in these threads can shed some light.

Thanks very much for your help!