Freehold / leasehold nightmare help pls

ademcnic

Hi All,

First time post on behalf of my dad

my DAD has received a letter in the post today from his freeholder -

at present he pays 15.00 per year ground rent, he is the sole owner of the property which he bought back in 1973. I always assumed he had bought the freehold many years ago when he first bought the house back in 73 however this is not the case - after investigation i have found out that when he first bought the house the lease was only for 35 years so this runs out in september 2007.

I am not a home owner myself and my dad has been sick for the last 16 years when he called me he was in a bit of shock as the freeholder now wishes to rasise the ground rent to 433.33 per month - he cant afford this as he is on benefits - can my dad be evicated on a house he has paid for for the past 25 years, this is all very new and scarey for both my parents.

I have tried to speak to the solictor who is acting on the behalf of the freeholder "cressingham Ltd" who wont give me any info but have informed me to get legal advice, all very worrying we have also received a Form No 1 which outlines there proposed new agreement "landlords notice terminating residential tenancy and proposing assured tenancy" it talks about various forms and states we have two months to contest this. May question to you is what do we do!!!!! is this legal, can they do this!!

Cheers and best wishes

BargainJunky

I didnt want to read and run - the only thing I can suggest is go to Citizens Advice first thing tomorrow.

This is the second similar story I have heard in the past few weeks and I think that the freeholder can do this sort of thing.

Good luck. I'm sure you will get lots of other good advice on here too.

Let us know how you get on.

Doozergirl

https://www.lease-advice.co.uk

There's a telephone number for them on the website. They are absolutely the people you need to talk to tomorrow morning. They are funded by the government, so there's no danger of them taking your money.

Very basically, at the end of a lease the property reverts back to the freeholder and the leaseholder/tenant has the right to stay in the property as an assured tenant at a market rate rent which is determined by the rent office at your council I think. So yes, the proposed tenancy is legal, though I have no idea about the proposed rent.

There is the possibilty of extending the lease, but I'm sorry to say that this is likely to cost thousands although at the end you do have a house worth full market value, opposed to nothing. The law gets very complicated once a lease runs down below 7 years I believe and the law start weighting with the freeholder.

Really, I'm only spouting here, trying to give you a little information based on what I know which is very little! You really need to speak to the Leasehold Advisory Service tomorrow morning.

Good Luck

hedgehogpenguin

i really really hope you work something out
all the best
HP

silvercar

if this is true and the lease runs out September '07, there is a big problem. After that date, your father will be a tenant not a home owner. He may well have rights to stay there and not be evicted but the house won't be his and there will be the question of rent.

Rewind 35 years. Did he take a mortgage? If so, it is extremely unlikely that a lender would agree to a mortgage with only 35 years left on the lease. Normally you need at least 25 years beyond the end of the mortgage, in practical terms you need to buy a property with enough years left on the lease that it won't be a problem when you sell it.
Even if he didn't have a mortgage, his solicitor should have advised him of the risks of buying a property with such a short lease. At the very least he should have secured the property at well under market value. You may need to dig and delve to get to the bottom of this. I wonder if the lease was meant to be extended at the time of purchase in 1973 and the paper work hasn't gone through. May be worth paying £3 and downloading the deeds from the Land Registry website to see if there is a freeholder and leaseholder shown as owning the property.

ademcnic

Thanks for all the help so far - is there a website for the land registery?

Richard_Webster

Maybe he thought it was such a bargain when he bought it 35 years ago and nobody warned him about it. Maybe the freeholder has offered to sell the freehold in the past and he has ignored the letters?

These days a solicitor would be certifiably crazy (and very negligent) not to warn a client and get clear written instructions from the client that he wanted to go ahead to buy a 35 year lease notwithstanding clearly stated warnings!

If he bought it in 1972 it would depend where it was whether the leasehold title was registered when he bought. In lots of parts of the country outside the major cities you couldn't register an ordinary purchase at that time.

You can try going to http://www.landreg.gov.uk and you can find out what titles - freehold and/or leasehold are registered for the property.

Also have a look at http://www.lease-advice.org/newintro.htm.

Hope that helps. (Assume it is in England or Wales as law completely different in Scotland.)

As a conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful but I accept no liability except to fee-paying clients

ademcnic

thanks again for your help - have been to a solicitors today basically we need to buy the freehold or extend the lease - its a real shame, what a nice scam these so called freeholders are on. even if we do buy or extend we also need to pick up the freeholders legal costs of 900.00

silvercar

something sounds suspect. The fact that you only find out 6 months in advance that your lease is about to expire?????

how much do they want to extend the lease?

If this was all legit, why would they agree to extend the lease when, in 6 months time, they will own the whole property and could sell it freehold at market value?

Something doesn't sound right.

ademcnic

the issue is my DAD -he never put an offer in to buy the freehold - as yet we do not know how much it will cost to buy the freehold or extend the lease - the freeholder is in control, we have 2 months to respond to there letter to stop them making my dad a tennent in his own house - incidently when he bought the house it had no floor boards lighting roof etc...

BargainJunky

Just wondering how you were getting on?

Have you managed to sort anything out?

Best wishes