What is the point of leasehold for houses?

princeofpounds

As interest rates have collapsed, there has been a much bigger incentive to make money from the sale of ground rent. £1k in ground rent income can be worth up to 18-20k in capital value. Plus whatever can be creamed off from the service fees (even if they shouldn't be doing so).


Your average punter has no idea how to value such things, so it doesn't tend to affect selling prices to the same degree.


The legal structure is also genuinely quite useful for ensuring common management and obligations. I'm not really up-to-date on how these things work, but I think it is becoming increasingly common for councils to insist on these kind of arrangements when granting planning, so they can avoid adoption costs. Still happy to take their Section 106 fees however

Katgrit

Chocolatefund wrote: »

Leasehold houses are quite common up here in the North. (old ones anyway) Usually remaining of 999 years. A relative of mine who used to live in one payed something like £3 per year ground rent.

The new builds, yeah. It seems a bit sneaky to sell them as leasehold nowadays.

Yep, same here. My ground rent is £1.20 a year. And it costs them 62p for the stamp to send the invoice! The solicitors who manage it are by chance located in a town 20 miles away that I've recently started working in so I nipped in last year and paid it in loose change.

Richard_Webster

Richard has been here long enough (and a lot longer than you) to make a convincing case for being a retired solicitor, I'm guessing he was posting from an unfamiliar device in this instance.

Or just getting old and not noticing typos!

bod1467

Leasehold semi- and detached properties is nothing new. When my parents bought their first property in 1984 it was leasehold with 45+ years remaining on the lease. (They paid a nominal sum a couple of years later to buy the leasehold).