buying a freehold

Richard_Webster

I think OP should go ahead. The figures quoted are quite reasonable and even if it costs about £750 altogether it will probably be worth it because:

a) gets landlord/freeholder off your back and more importantly
b) makes house easier to sell.

We have a lot of long leasehold houses round our way and when we deal with one we often find the buyer is surprised to find out it is leasehold and worries a lot about it even though we try to tell him it is usually no big deal. There are a lot of people out there who have been told leasehold is bad, perhaps because their Auntie Maud had trouble with the freeholders/managing agents of her flat.

So if you market a house as long leasehold (particularly now people look on Rightmove etc and there is less opportunity for the estate agent to explain the lease is very long and almost a technicality when handing the particulars out) you might get 20-40% less viewings. If you leave the tenure vague and unspecified on the particulars (you can't on the HIP) the buyers get all cross because they assume dit was freehold. So whilst it is difficult to put a value on it, it can defintely be worth while because it will be easier to sell.

This is certainly a factor where I am (Southampton/Eastleigh) where it is a very localised thing with some older areas of housing and not found in nearby towns like Fareham and Portsmouth. A Portsmouth solicitor can easily be confused witha Southampton long leasehold title and buyers may not have heard of them before... In a lot of northern towns most houses are leasehold and so it may not make so much difference because the fear of the mysterious leasehold may not be there so much because everyone has them...