Finding out the length of lease left

AubreyMac

You can find out how much a propety has sold for in the past on public records and find out abour planning permissions locally etc.

But can you find out how many years left on the lease a current property has?

I'm pretty fed up with being told by estate agents that they "don't know or it needs to be verified by vendors solicitors" etc. It's taking up a lot of time calling up to find this out as usually it isn't answered on the first call.

When I first started flat hunting, I was naive and when an agent told me they didn't know I went to view a propety only to find out that there was only 50 years left. I suspected the agent knew this all along so called back after the viewing pretending I was a new client interested and again I was told they didn't know!

eddddy

You can get a copy of the Title register from the Land Registry website - but that would cost £3 a time.

AubreyMac

eddddy wrote: »

You can get a copy of the Title register from the Land Registry website - but that would cost £3 a time.

Thanks.

£3 a pop though, jeez!

Do you get a definate answer straight away or do you have to wait for it in the post?

Sounds as much effort as getting the answer from an agent.

eddddy

AubreyMac wrote: »

Thanks.

£3 a pop though, jeez!

Do you get a definate answer straight away or do you have to wait for it in the post?

Sounds as much effort as getting the answer from an agent.

You download them straightaway as pdf files - having paid by debit/credit card.

The Title register will also tell you other info, like name of owner, name of lender (if any), covenants - and price paid (but you can get price paid elsewhere for free).

G_M

The Title will not show the lease details - only whether the property is freehold or leasehold.

You need to see the lease itself to see
a) when it started and
b) how many years it was for

ziziban

Having just downloaded the Title for a rented property I am living in (to help with a dispute situation), I can confirm that at least in my case details of the lease were included.

It gives the original length of the lease, along with the date of commencement and also assignment details in my case.

Grylls

I can't offer an easy answer (as I don't think there is one) but can sympathise. I found this to be a perennial problem when I was flat hunting. You'd think by now estate agents would have bucked up their ideas - it is pretty important information, after all. Instead, I was always being told 'don't know' or 'needs to verified by vendors solicitors'.

G_M

ziziban wrote: »

Having just downloaded the Title for a rented property I am living in (to help with a dispute situation), I can confirm that at least in my case details of the lease were included.

It gives the original length of the lease, along with the date of commencement and also assignment details in my case.

I stand corrected.

Though this will not always be the case.

Land_Registry

If the lease is registered then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties

From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer/lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title.

For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.

Your solicitor would obtain a copy of the register as part of the conveyancing process anyway to confirm the above and ownership. But you can also view/download a copy for most titles online for £3 per register

If the remaining length of the lease is likely to be an issue then you would like to think the seller's solicitor would have flagged it up to them anyway and/or they would have advised the agent but that clearly may not always happen.

kingstreet

An EA won't disclose what it has been told about the lease unless it has been confirmed in writing by the vendor's solicitor.

The problem here is that many vendors don't instruct a solicitor until after a sale has been agreed. The EA won't/can't take the vendor's word for it, as many found it caused them issues doing this when the Property Misdescriptions Act was introduced, with vendors incorrectly labelling their homes as freehold, or incorrectly stating the residual lease term.

Unless vendors change their behaviour, or a change is forced on them as with the HIP, I can't see EAs being able to alter their MO on this.