Purchasing a house with Leasehold and Freehold

Cookiepops

Hi,

we've found out form our solicitors letters that the freehold house we are purchasing had a lease on it. The sellers solicitors have said the owner has acquired the leasehold but we are awaiting the evidence of this. My solicitor says effectively it means we will have a property with a leasehold and freehold on it and she will arrange to link up the 2 entries on the land registry. The lease has 49 years left but I don't know what all of this means? Im hoping it means we can just let the leasehold run out and it reverts to us as the freeholder? Or is there anything we can do to effectively scrub the leasehold altogether? Just thinking it would be complicated if we intend to sell the house in years to come?
Any advice much appreciated!

GalaxyStar

Don't worry too much, the house we are buying has exactly the same. The reason they are kept separate some times is because the leasehold title can have things in it like who maintains things like the road (if unadopted) or right of ways around a neighbours property - which the freehold title doesn't have and without the leasehold there is no legal evidence of these things. You are freehold, it just has the added title - it doesn't mean anything unless there is something specific in it that you may need at some point, but I believe if it's not linked together after the lease has ran out it will just drop off, though someone will have to back me up on that!

Land_Registry

This can often happen where the number of years left on the lease has dropped to this sort of level.

As you state you can simply keep the lease and it's title going or you can apply to 'merge' it back into the freehold. Your solicitor will be able to advise on this and much may depend on whether you want to then lease it out again or not. If you do then you would extend the term of the lease or simply have that one determined (closed) and create a new one.

Section 4 of our online guidance explains in more detail what is required to 'merge' the two but it is written as guidance for conveyancing solicitors in the main so don't get too bogged down in the registration detail. As GalaxyStar suggests there probably is not too much to worry about and your solicitor will explain things naturally.

propertyman

Beware of confusing your terms.

The home owner has a lease of the property and already owns as you say "the leasehold" which is the lease for the home.

What they have done is also acquired the freehold, and as explained this can be a simple oversight or because the lease has covenants to pay for local charges on unadopted roads greens spaces etc.

Claire_A87

The exact same thing happened in my house purchase. Your vendor may not have merged the lease for several reasons: they forgot, the leasehold has more rights than the freehold, they can't supply the right documentation to land registry to apply for a merge etc.

I panicked when I got told this by my solicitor, but it really is nothing to worry about. You will own the freehold and leasehold, so essentially be your own LL If memory serves (haven't had land registry confirmed/deeds back yet), we had our first charge only registered against the freehold title, so it really does make no difference from a buying perspective.

Hope this helps!

Cookiepops

Thanks all - wow I thought it was unusual so was not expecting any responses at all - so its good to hear the one common theme throughout is to not worry about it. I think our solicitor was discussing the merge of the lease and freehold, though we are still awaiting evidence the seller did acquire the leasehold. I would rather the leasehold was closed out altogether as I could see this causing us issues if we sold the house in years to come.

propertyman

Cookiepops wrote: »

though we are still awaiting evidence the seller did acquire the leasehold. .

:eek: Please read my post they did acquire the leasehold that is THE lease for the house that they bought.

You are looking for proof that they did acquire THE freehold as well:mad:

Acquiring the lease is an American phrase and has no place or relevance in this context.

Claire_A87

porpertyman - calm down and give the OP some slack. What with all this talk of freehold and leasehold is it not possible that they just typed the wrong one? I think you've been a little overly offended by what was most likely an honest mistake.

propertyman

calm is irrelevant, i have explained the difference to help the understand what they need to do but refuse to do so. Anyone trying to help them buy the lease, will ignore what they really want, the freehold.
my tone is to emphasive not that it is a mistake but an erroneous concept that is lodged in their mind which delays and confuses

Claire_A87

I recognise your need to stress the difference between the two, and the information you provided is spot on...but the angry emoticons are over the top.