leaehold or freehold?

cleofish

hi wondering if anyone has any advice, we have started again to look at some properties, there is one that we have an appointment for on thursday.

i was doing a bit of a background check on what the house has sold for in the past and i notice that in the older adverts that i managed to get through from zoopla in 2001 they mention that it is a leasehold house, however in the advert for 2011 nothing is mentioned and in the current advert nothing is said at all.

i just also had a look at land registry and searched the address and its brought up two records under that address, one which says tenure: leasehold and price paid is available for that and then another record which says tenure: freehold but no information on price for that.

not sure what it is, will call tomorrow and ask agents but is there any way of quickly finding out what it has now? is it possible it had a leasehold that has now expired and is freehold, going off land registry having 2 entries?

thanks in advance!

hazyjo

I'm pretty sure that zoopla messes it up sometimes and is pre-set to leasehold - or maybe if they list it under a certain thing it changes to leasehold. They did the same with my old house and, luckily, I spotted it soon after it was listed. The EA didn't know how it had happened. RM was showing freehold, as was every other site it was listed.

It also might be that the last people to buy it bought the freehold. Fairly likely what with it being a house, not a flat. Ask the vendor (don't take any notice of the EA, s/he won't know and will probably just say freehold).

Jx

TrickyDicky101

cleofish wrote: »

not sure what it is, will call tomorrow and ask agents but is there any way of quickly finding out what it has now? is it possible it had a leasehold that has now expired and is freehold, going off land registry having 2 entries?

thanks in advance!

This is telling you it IS a leasehold house. Whether the freehold is owned by the vendors (or somebody else) is another matter.

cleofish

hi thanks for your replies sorry about my message was a bit rushed yesterday.

called the ea and they said they didnt know as they hadnt seen the title deeds, no surprise there though!

i pulled it off from land registry and looks like it is leasehold, gives a lease of 1,000 years from 1896! quite interesting really, not sure if we want the complication of going for a leasehold over freehold though.

it gives rent of £2.10 does anyone know if that is what we would have to pay or would that have increased since then or does it stay the same?

also we called our lender and was told that its a no by the guy on the phone for getting a mortgage on a leasehold property? but when i checked their lending criteria, it states as long as the lease has 30 years left to run after the mortgage ends, so not sure if its standard for halifax?

TrickyDicky101

You would need to check your lease to find out if the GR may increase, however, as the lease was originally granted so long ago and assuming no subsequent revisions it is likely to stay at £2 (per year?) for the remaining term of the lease. You effectively have something as good as freehold (note may be restrictive terms in your lease though - you will need to review the lease to check).

I think the Halifax person you spoke to didn't know what they were talking about.