silly question....freehold or leashold?

doelani

Sorry for asking a silly question. Can someone tell me the difference?

We ahve been in our house since 2000 and on our Valuation for our mortgage it stated that our Tenure was Freehold. After being in the house a few months we recieved a bill for groundrent and just paid it as it was a small amount . It is something like £1.50 for a year.

We have continuted to pay this as seemed liek to much bother to get solicitor to egt teh deeds back off mortgage company to check this out. Does anyone know how I can check this out without having to gets deeds to inspect?

I like in Northern Ireland and the reason this has arisen is we may be remortgaging and the new company say home has to be Freehold or if Leashold has to have 75 years left on Lease.

many thanks

kingkano

Valuers can often get it wrong (mine said 100years left on lease when it was over 110). But surely your solicitor would have known? They have alot more work to do when its leasehold I've been led to believe (certainly by the quotes I've just had for selling too!!).

Would it not be checkable at land registry or something? (sorry no expert here)

HelpWhereIcan

While the term 'ground rent' would imply leasehold, the amountof £1.50 per year would not.

My mum has a freehold house on an 'exclusive' estate where there is an estate charge to cover the maintenance of the development as a whole (shared lawns etc - it is very pretty) but that is again significantly higher than £1.50 per year.

As kingkano says, i would expect the solicitors who did the original purchase for you should have know/picked it up I would have thought. AFAIK, they would not need to apply to the lender for the deeds (if the lender holds them anyway!) as they should be able to look through the file from when you bought it. Do you have copies of any of the searches from then. f not check with your solicitor.

The amount is unlikely to be a problem, it is the length of the lease that may be the issue for your lender or future potential purchasers, but I dare say that could be sorted out.

Hope this helps

doelani

thanks guys

will try and get touch with solicitor who did original house perchace in 2000 for us as I am sure he will have details on file. I can only find info from surveyor and copy of mortgage aggreement nothing else.

thanks

doelani

spoke to solicitor and it is leashold but it was originally for 2000 years so we have something like 1880 years left on it so we will be ok. Luckily my solicitor kekpt a draft copy of our deeds.

thanks everyone