Price difference Freehold vs. Leasehold House

AlexMac

elwappo wrote: »

Thanks for the advice everyone.... They've been so lazy in the past as they copy/paste the same advert text for houses of the same size/design. And they wonder why EA's are bottom of the list of professions people least trust?!

Having extracted the urine from EAs in my post#4, above, I maybe should temper the criticism by saying that when searching for a (really cheap) little property recently on the Isle of Wight (where tenure tends to be complex with lots of odd leasehold arrangements) I was really impressed.

Most agents we asked knew the tenure, lease length, service charges and in some cases, planned or pending work to common areas which were likely to result in extra shared costs. One had even got builders' estimates for some obviously essentail roof and damp repairs!

So here's half a cheer for EAs!

principlecounts

I've just discovered the downside of having a property with less than 80 years leasehold term, I've had some potential buyers opt out purely for this reason.

I hope leaseholding is abolished like polio.

P.S. and yes E.A. are idiots, I'm finding them very unprofessional for the price you pay them. I have long list of errors they have made, and will be submitting it to them on sale.

princeofpounds

I hope leaseholding is abolished like polio

Why? Believe me for flats true freehold is way more problematic.

It makes slightly less sense when it comes to standalone property like houses, but to be honest when you realise it's nothing more than a very long term rental contract with significant rights and self-repairing obligations, it still makes sense.

It needed a lot of reform, it's got a lot of that in the last couple of decades, could probably still go further. But I'd suggest reform of the short-term AST is actually a bigger social issue now to be honest.

There is a new-ish type of tenure called commonhold that was meant to be an updated way to deal with flats, but it's had next-to-zero take-up since it was created.