Can a property be freehold and leasehold?

xxxpinkladyxxx

My dad is looking to buy a property. He's put an offer in on a maisonette. But he said that this property has a shared freehold and a lease of 125 years. My dad seems to think that this lease is good but I think it's very low and would be hard to re-sell. There's no service charge for this property which I thought there always was if it was leasehold but then there's the shared freehold thing? Can a property be freehold and leasehold at the same time? I don't know anything about leasehold properties as I've only ever bought one house and that was freehold.

[Deleted User]

Yes it can be in the sense that even if you own a share of the freehold, there is still a lease and you still own the lease. Because you're leasing from the collective freeholders, not just yourself.

125 years is a long lease and it won't be a problem to resell it. A short lease is 80 years or under.

Would get the conveyancer to look into the service charge and find out how maintenance work is paid for.

xxxpinkladyxxx

Oh that sounds really complicated!

With regard to the lease, I know 125 years is a long time - I mean it's longer than any of us are likely to live - but I know I would never buy a place with a lease that short as if I wanted to sell it in 50 years time, then the lease wouldn't be longer than the average lifespan (if that makes sense) and then that buyer would probably think they are going to have trouble selling it after them. I know when my sister bought her maisonette, it had a 900 odd year lease or something so in comparison to that, I think it sounds really short.

Yeah I think my dad needs to speak to a solicitor anyway because he really doesn't know much about buying property (and neither do I!) and it's always going to be the most money you are ever likely to spend in one go.

zarf2007

xxxpinkladyxxx wrote: »

Oh that sounds really complicated!

With regard to the lease, I know 125 years is a long time - I mean it's longer than any of us are likely to live - but I know I would never buy a place with a lease that short as if I wanted to sell it in 50 years time, then the lease wouldn't be longer than the average lifespan (if that makes sense) and then that buyer would probably think they are going to have trouble selling it after them. I know when my sister bought her maisonette, it had a 900 odd year lease or something so in comparison to that, I think it sounds really short.

Yeah I think my dad needs to speak to a solicitor anyway because he really doesn't know much about buying property (and neither do I!) and it's always going to be the most money you are ever likely to spend in one go.

If its share of freehold then technically if the others agree you can extend your lease to 999 years for a minimal cost of a solicitor (£700 or so) as you do not need to deal with a 3rd party.

vectistim

OK - its a maisonette with a share of the freehold.
I would therefore guess that the building consists of two flats.
These two flats each own half the freehold.
Any maintenance costs will usually then be split between the two flats.
When the length of the lease starts getting a bit low the leaseholders can ask the freeholders for an extension to the lease.
Since the freeholders are the same people as the leaseholders then there's not much point in the freeholders charging the leaseholders for a lease extension.
Therefore the freeholders could agree to grant new leases for hundreds of years to the leaseholders if they wanted to.

katejo

xxxpinkladyxxx wrote: »

Oh that sounds really complicated!

With regard to the lease, I know 125 years is a long time - I mean it's longer than any of us are likely to live - but I know I would never buy a place with a lease that short as if I wanted to sell it in 50 years time, then the lease wouldn't be longer than the average lifespan (if that makes sense) and then that buyer would probably think they are going to have trouble selling it after them. I know when my sister bought her maisonette, it had a 900 odd year lease or something so in comparison to that, I think it sounds really short.

Yeah I think my dad needs to speak to a solicitor anyway because he really doesn't know much about buying property (and neither do I!) and it's always going to be the most money you are ever likely to spend in one go.

By London standards 125 years is a pretty long lease . My first flat had a new 99 year lease and I sold it easily 12 years later

Goldiegirl

xxxpinkladyxxx wrote: »

Oh that sounds really complicated!

With regard to the lease, I know 125 years is a long time - I mean it's longer than any of us are likely to live - but I know I would never buy a place with a lease that short as if I wanted to sell it in 50 years time, then the lease wouldn't be longer than the average lifespan (if that makes sense) and then that buyer would probably think they are going to have trouble selling it after them. I know when my sister bought her maisonette, it had a 900 odd year lease or something so in comparison to that, I think it sounds really short.

Yeah I think my dad needs to speak to a solicitor anyway because he really doesn't know much about buying property (and neither do I!) and it's always going to be the most money you are ever likely to spend in one go.

Is it likely that the property will be in your dad's possession for 50 years? Probably not - a 125 year lease is more than adequate. The things that need to concern you dad more are things like restrictive covenants etc, his solicitor will be able to advise

curedham

xxxpinkladyxxx wrote: »

Oh that sounds really complicated!

With regard to the lease, I know 125 years is a long time - I mean it's longer than any of us are likely to live - but I know I would never buy a place with a lease that short as if I wanted to sell it in 50 years time

It's not that complicated. A lot of share of freehold flats in London have underlying lease. Usually there's a limited company setup to own the freehold. You/your dad will be the shareholder of that company. The company grant the lease to you/your dad personally. I used to own one before I sold it recently, it's really rather straight forward, you just need to ensure that your solicitor knows how to deal with this.

125 years is long lease for any standard, a lot of the newer flats have 999 years lease, but most of flat conversion that I've seen have < 99 years.

propertyman

curedham wrote: »

It's not that complicated. A lot of share of freehold flats in London have underlying lease. .

No they dont.:eek:

They are leasehold flats, full stop.

The flat owner may then jointly own with others, or hold a share in or be a member of acompany that hold, the freehold.

The freehold is one thing owned by a company or a group.

You own a leasehold flat.

curedham

propertyman wrote: »

No they dont.:eek:

They are leasehold flats, full stop.

The flat owner may then jointly own with others, or hold a share in or be a member of acompany that hold, the freehold.

The freehold is one thing owned by a company or a group.

You own a leasehold flat.

Semantics, my post explained the same concept in its entirety. It's EA and lay speak (at least from those that I know) to say share of freehold flats. My solicitor & EA always refer to the "underlying lease" of the flat.

Richard_Webster

My solicitor & EA always refer to the "underlying lease" of the flat.

The use of the word underlying implies it is not important.

The lease is very important and can't be changed without the consent of the freeholder(s). The dangers with indiscriminate use of "share of freehold" is that people think that it is a special sort of ownership with definite rights and obligations.

In fact it is simply leasehold where in most cases, if you can get the other co-freeholders to agree things, you have more freedom to do what you want.

However if they don't agree.....

Too many people have bought properties that are "share of freehold" and assumed that various things like lease extensions and changes to e.g. include loft spaces etc were automatic and then found out they weren't.