Paying off ground rent in full

tillboy

They mostly make their money by enforcing restricted covnenants on the property and for selling at a high price to people who do not realise how cheaply generally then can be paid off.

you may well receive a questionaire to fill in from the rent charge owner, do not full this out unless you have to as this will provide them with the information they need to confirm breach of restricted covenents etc.

Do not confuse this with a lease, the property and land are freehold but under this system you are still liable for the rent charge

EdInvestor

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

What an interesting subject.

Their information points out that these rent charges are sometimes confusingly called "ground rent" - as mine was in Bristol - even though "ground rent" normally refers to payments due on leasehold properties.

Indeed so.The idea that the house can be freehold but the land on a leasehold is the complete reverse of the normal freehold/leasehold system.

"How do I best go about buying out the ground rent (land freehold) for the land on which my house stands? I pay an annual ground rent to the ground landlord in the Isle of Man. The lease is 90 years from 1955.The house building is freehold.

Was your Bristol property the same as this MMD?Or was the ground rent liability expressed in some other way?

Ian_W

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

What an interesting subject.

Yes, and proof positive that you learn something new every day!

The description I gave of freeholders owning the land beneath and the sky above was from a solicitor many moons ago and I don't for one minute believe that particular one was capable of original thought!

My experience in the North-West of buying/selling has never turned this up, far more frequently it is older properties which are leasehold with the freeholder lost in the mists of time and no ground rent - perhaps they had no use for a pepper-corn? - ever collected in living memory.

Dan29

EdInvestor wrote: »

Was your Bristol property the same as this MMD?Or was the ground rent liability expressed in some other way?

As far as my mum remembers, the Bristol system is unique and if it affects your house then ground rent is payable indefinitely to the owner of the land on which the house is built.

She says it's not uncommon for the owner of the land to die and no one bother taking over the collection of the ground rent as it's such a small sum - she thinks she paid £12 a year.

BTW savingforoz we lived in Kingswood; not sure which part of Bristol you are in but £3 a year seems like a bargain

Richard_Webster

savingforoz wrote: »

I don't have a lease, never have had. I think I'll give them a call as the letter doesn't explain anything about the benefits of doing this, which is why I'm puzzled.

In some parts of the country you have a thing called a rent charge which is like a ground rent but charged against a freehold property.

Normally these rent charges do not carry with them any control over things like extensions, whereas there can be advantages in buying the freehold, if the property is long leasehold, just to get rid of the freeholder being possibly difficult over matters like extensions.


As a conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful but I accept no liability except to fee-paying clients

savingforoz

Dan29 wrote: »

As far as my mum remembers, the Bristol system is unique and if it affects your house then ground rent is payable indefinitely to the owner of the land on which the house is built.

She says it's not uncommon for the owner of the land to die and no one bother taking over the collection of the ground rent as it's such a small sum - she thinks she paid £12 a year.

BTW savingforoz we lived in Kingswood; not sure which part of Bristol you are in but £3 a year seems like a bargain

I checked my title deeds last night, which confirm that I own the freehold but that a £3 per year ground rent charge, payable in perpetuity, was created when the house was built in 1903. I have yet to call the ground rent agents (will do so today) but it looks increasingly like there is no point in paying the £260 as it confers no benefits whatsoever on me.

Dan29 - I live just down the road from Kingswood, in Redfield. Had no idea that Bristol was a bit quirky with regards to this ground rent thingy!

savingforoz

Am still none the wiser - they are checking their end and will get back to me. They started saying that I'd need their permission to do alterations but when I said "I own the freehold and have title absolute to the property" I got the response "I see what you mean...we'll phone you back".

I suspect they just want people to pay up without querying this...

Richard_Webster

There could still be restrictive covenant preventing alterations or use as two flats etc. You need to check your Land Registry entries and any filed documents to make sure that there aren't any of these.

As a conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful but I accept no liability except to fee-paying clients

sciencegeek

I would just like to add to this thread,

i live in the north west (manchester) and our terraced house was bought FREEHOLD. However we do have to pay some small fee each year (about six pounds i think) which i believe is termed 'ground rent'.

Interestingly all the houses in our row have to pay this fee and when we bought the house it was in the details that the owner of our property was responsible for the collection of all the ground rents from the other houses on the street. We than have to give it all to a company with a name like 'Bloggs, Bloggs and Bloggs' which makes me think it is a solicitors or similar.


So its not just a bristol thing.

cheers

savingforoz

There's no restrictive covenants in my title deeds - the section dealing with the rent charge is only a few lines and just says that the rent is £3 per annum payable in perpetuity.