Buying back a peppercorn lease?

G_M

eddddy wrote: »

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- They don't have to pay you rent for the garages (in legal jargon "a peppercorn rent" means "zero rent".)

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Do they not have to hand over a peppercorn if the freeholder writes and demands it.....?

But your reminder to look at insurance & maintenance terms in the lease is apt.

DandelionPatrol

eddddy wrote: »

- They don't have to pay you rent for the garages (in legal jargon "a peppercorn rent" means "zero rent".)

- BUT... they might have to pay you a contribution towards your buildings insurance, and any repairs that you have to do to the building/garages. You need to read the leases to check this, and then ask them for the money.

I have always understood a peppercorn rent to be a nominal amount, not a zero amount. Hence it may not be worth suing for, but it could be sued for.

Dan-Dan

Peppercorn rent = freeholders couldnt be arsed to collect rent rather have actual peppercorns , easier to adminster etc, effectively peppercorn rent means nothing of any real value is due

TBagpuss

If the leases were drawn up 30 years ago the peppercorn rrent won't be an actual peppercorn. It will be an actual sum of money, but may be so low as to be not worth asking for (e.g. £1, or £5 per year.) You would have to look at the lease to see what it is.

Many long leaseholds exist solely so that the freeholder retains some control over the property and can (for instance) impose limitation on how the property can be used, or so that the landlord can legally claim contributions to the insurance or other costs.

In your case, the leasehold is probably to avoid you having a flying freehold, and probably imposes responsibility on you to have building insurance for the whole building and *may* entitle you to claim some of those costs back from the other owners.

But in terms of buying another of the garages, you can only do so if the owner wishes to sell and if you are willing, and able, to pay for it. The price is likely to be market value for a garage - if you can't afford to move house I would question whether you are likely to be able to afford to buy the garages.

And as others have said, if you can, you would then need to get planning permission in order to convert them into living accommodation, and the planning costs and conversion costs are unlikely to be cheap.

If you did all of that, you'd then presumably have a house which had no front garden at all and had other people's parking spaces immediately outside you door/windows - you'd need to think carefully about whether the house you would end up with, in the location you are in, would be worth it - I'm not sure that a converted coach house would be the easiest property to sell on.

[Deleted User]

AdrianC wrote: »

No, non-payment of a peppercorn rent doesn't invalidate the lease. It means you can sue them for eight peppercorns.

Simply put, you own the ground, and have a 99 year long contract with the leaseholder saying they can have their garage on your land. Until that contract expires, you and they are bound by it. They can sell their lease - which is part of the property they own and, presumably, have promised as security for a mortgage. So the mortgage lender have a say in whether they sell off part of that security.

As someone who has just bought a house with land rented under a peppercorn rent I find this fascinating. Surely the lease with the peppercorn rent is only bound by whatever constraints were put in place at the start of the rental? If the lease stated that £x must be paid each year and those pounds aren't paid then doesn't that automatically invalidate the lease?!

DandelionPatrol

Deleted_User wrote: »

As someone who has just bought a house with land rented under a peppercorn rent I find this fascinating. Surely the lease with the peppercorn rent is only bound by whatever constraints were put in place at the start of the rental? If the lease stated that £x must be paid each year and those pounds aren't paid then doesn't that automatically invalidate the lease?!

Yes, effectively at some stage, the lease could be forfeit.

AdrianC

Given that the OP hasn't even asked the leaseholders for the nominal rent, there would be a VERY difficult argument to claim that their six-figure investment in property, security against a mortgage, should be forfeit...

I suspect any such claim would rapidly be headed off at the pass by the lenders lobbing him a couple of quid's worth of Schwartz refill pack with a "There y'go, paid in advance until the end of the lease", before adding it to the mortgage account with a hefty admin charge.

DandelionPatrol

AdrianC wrote: »

Given that the OP hasn't even asked the leaseholders for the nominal rent, there would be a VERY difficult argument to claim that their six-figure investment in property, security against a mortgage, should be forfeit...

I suspect any such claim would rapidly be headed off at the pass by the lenders lobbing him a couple of quid's worth of Schwartz refill pack with a "There y'go, paid in advance until the end of the lease", before adding it to the mortgage account with a hefty admin charge.

What would be forfeit is only the leased part, not the whole property, ie the garage. Yes, the lender would step in, pay off the debt - but not make an advance, I would think, because this would stymie their chances of another set of admin charges.

NozeyParker

I too live in a coach house with the same set up. However, I've just asked the leaseholders to contribute to my home insurance much to their disgust. Any experts have any ideas on what I can do about this as it's a clear contract breach. I've gone back to the developer who owns the garages (I'm freehold) to see what action they may take - probably not much. But should I consider a small claims court? The sum is £30 each from 3 households which over the years will be a lot of money lost to me if I don't set the right tone now as I've just moved in. Any advice or notes of caution?

DandelionPatrol

NozeyParker wrote: »

I too live in a coach house with the same set up. However, I've just asked the leaseholders to contribute to my home insurance much to their disgust. Any experts have any ideas on what I can do about this as it's a clear contract breach. I've gone back to the developer who owns the garages (I'm freehold) to see what action they may take - probably not much. But should I consider a small claims court? The sum is £30 each from 3 households which over the years will be a lot of money lost to me if I don't set the right tone now as I've just moved in. Any advice or notes of caution?

Please, start a new thread. Although your problem relates to coach houses and leased garages, it is only superficially similar to the subject of the thread.