Selling a house with leasehold quickly

anselld

Waynepayne77 wrote: »

Hi All,
Thanks for your responses

Yes the potential buyer would like me to purchase the freehold as part of the deal

I think the reasons for this may be

1.If they wish to rent the property out the property must be a freehold
2.You are unable to buy the freehold unless you have lived in the property for 2 years

Can anyone confirm if these points are correct?

Thanks
Wayne

(1) Incorrect. Otherwise most Flats would be un-lettable.
(2) Incorrect. You could buy at any time if the Freeholder is willing to sell.

What type of property is it? Are there any other Leaseholders under the same Freehold?

Waynepayne77

It's a 3 bed detached property and I am the only leasehold on the property

moneyistooshorttomention

Waynepayne77 wrote: »

Hi All,
Thanks for your responses

Yes the potential buyer would like me to purchase the freehold as part of the deal

I think the reasons for this may be

1.If they wish to rent the property out the property must be a freehold
2.You are unable to buy the freehold unless you have lived in the property for 2 years

Can anyone confirm if these points are correct?

Thanks
Wayne

To many of us - houses just ARE freehold/of course they're freehold and we couldn't get our heads around them being anything else. The whole "Well the main reason for avoiding flats is they are leasehold - and hence looking only at houses" argument ....

We just don't expect to have to deal with leasehold hassles and won't.

AnotherJoe

Waynepayne77 wrote: »

Hi All,
Thanks for your responses

Yes the potential buyer would like me to purchase the freehold as part of the deal

I think the reasons for this may be

1.If they wish to rent the property out the property must be a freehold
2.You are unable to buy the freehold unless you have lived in the property for 2 years

Can anyone confirm if these points are correct?

Thanks
Wayne

1 is definitely wrong (how would anyone let a flat out if it wasn't) and surely 2 also wrong since that would mean the freehold couldn't be sold to a third party.

I think it's far simpler than you are considering,your purchaser just wants to buy the property unencumbered in a simple transaction. I would suspect it being leasehold has put potential purchasers off already.

Perhaps you can't get your head round this hence coming up with these ideas, as obviously it wasn't an issue for you when you bought but I think it would be for most people. Certainly it would for me.i wouldn't even consider buying such a property,

So as the prospective purchasers are happy to pay the extra for the freehold, you just need to arrange things with your solicitor so it's all tied up somehow. Though if you did buy it and then the house sale fell through you'd still have increased the price of your property because yours should currently be less than the house next door that is freehold, and you'd likely hit the same issue with future purchasers anyway

Waynepayne77

Hi All,just checked the leasehold advice service web site and it us correct that you must be the registered owner of the property for 2 years before you can buy the freehold

principlecounts

I used to live in a leasehold house, and so know this issue inside out when trying to sell (and own a leasehold property). I don't understand what the question is here. But in my experience, we instructed our estate agent to say it was a leasehold property, how many years was left, and the implications before anyone viewed. The house price I set was reflective of the potential cost required to renew the lease. Everything is in the communication. Let me know if you have specific questions though, I didn't realise my house was a leasehold at the time I purchased - what a dumbass I was at the time.

G_M

Waynepayne77 wrote: »

Hi All,just checked the leasehold advice service web site and it us correct that you must be the registered owner of the property for 2 years before you can buy the freehold

I am frankly AMAZED that leaseadvice would give erroneous information.

Please provide a link.

But given the unreliability of your posts to date (buy the lease? buy the freehold?) I suspect it is more likely you have either mis-read, or misunderstood.


edit: as I thought. Leaseadvice does not say there is a requirement to "be the registered owner of the property for 2 years before you can buy the freehold"

http://www.lease-advice.org/information/faqs/faq.asp?item=114

Waynepayne77

Hopefully i aint misread it www .lease-advice.org/information/faqs/print_faq.asp?section=4[/url]

robatwork

Waynepayne77 wrote: »

Hopefully i aint misread it www .lease-advice.org/information/faqs/print_faq.asp?section=4[/url]

http://www.lease-advice.org/information/faqs/print_faq.asp?section=4

What this seems to say is that if you are leaseholder for 2 years you can force the freeholder to sell the freehold.

But there's nothing to stop him selling to you by "informal agreement" as it mentions later.

Most people wouldn't consider buying a leasehold house. There may be no good reason for that other than "that's how it is", but... that's how it is.

moneyistooshorttomention

I had understood that freeholders can be forced to sell the freehold these days.

However, I wouldn't be at all sure whether one could force the freeholder to only charge a reasonable price for it - or whether they could be made to sell the freehold to someone BUT allowed to set whatever price they wanted for it (ie and could therefore charge a skyhigh price to prevent themselves being forced to hand the freehold over).