Inconsistencies in Lease, help!!!

OhSnap241

Hi

I'm currently looking into some extending the lease on my property and have a few inconsistencies/mistakes in my lease.

The freeholder on my copy of the lease is not the person who i pay ground rent to. If the freeholder had changed, shouldnt this have been highligted when i purchased the property?

Also, the lease states that the freeholder is responsible for the building insurance and the maintainence of communal external areas. However, the other tenants and I have always provided our own building and contents insurance and maintained these areas. When i challenged the freeholder on this, he told me that as far as he was concerned the tenants were responsible for their own insurance. With regard to the external areas, he referred me to the management company who charge no fee except for the collection of the ground rent

Said freeholder is now asking for an extremely large sum of money for the lease extension. Will these inconsistencies affect the extension of the lease and could this possibly help me in extending the lease?

tim123456789

OhSnap241 wrote: »

Hi

I'm currently looking into some extending the lease on my property and have a few inconsistencies/mistakes in my lease.

The freeholder on my copy of the lease is not the person who i pay ground rent to. If the freeholder had changed, shouldnt this have been highligted when i purchased the property?

Also, the lease states that the freeholder is responsible for the building insurance and the maintainence of communal external areas. However, the other tenants and I have always provided our own building and contents insurance and maintained these areas. When i challenged the freeholder on this, he told me that as far as he was concerned the tenants were responsible for their own insurance. With regard to the external areas, he referred me to the management company who charge no fee except for the collection of the ground rent

Said freeholder is now asking for an extremely large sum of money for the lease extension. Will these inconsistencies affect the extension of the lease and could this possibly help me in extending the lease?

well yes you should have been informed who is responsible for these things, but they change over time and the lease isn't re-written, it always just reflects what the situation was when it was originally written.

so no it isn't an impediment to getting an extension (except in the sense that if it isn't the person named in the lease, you might not know who to buy it from)

daz67

If thats what it states in the lease thats what should happen. Items such as maintenance, insurance etc should be covered by a service charge issued by your freeholder/management Co.

richardw

Sounds like you need to start the lease extension process under the 1993 act.

G_M

Leases are not re-issued each time the freeholder changes.

To identify the current freeholder, pay £3 and download a copy of the freehold Title from the land Registry.

If the lease places responsibilityforinsurance, communalmaintenance etc on the freeholder, then he should do it.

If he refuses, court action would be needed to enforce.

In the meantime, (and possibly even long term so as to avoid expensive court action) it, it makes sense for all leaseholders to jointly arrange/ pay for building insurance etc.

Extending the lease? See Leaseadvice here.