What to ask when buying freehold flat?

idkwhattosay

Hi,

Any caveats? You normally ask about lease, maintenance and ground rent, what about when you're buying a freehold flat in a block of flats?

HouseBuyer77

Are you sure it's a freehold flat? Not a flat with a share of freehold (here it's still a leasehold property it's just you also own a part of the freehold).

Primary questions in such a situation should focus around how the block of flats is governed. Do they have a company manage the building for them? Do they have a residents association that does it? How is everything financed?

idkwhattosay

Yes it's probably a share of freehold, but doesn't that make the flat itself exempt from extending the lease and paying ground rent aka making it a freehold property?

Mr.Generous

ask what happens if the management company goes bust.

eddddy

idkwhattosay wrote: »

Yes it's probably a share of freehold, but doesn't that make the flat itself exempt from extending the lease and paying ground rent aka making it a freehold property?

It's not quite that simple.

All the leaseholders will be joint freeholders. So you can all decide not to charge each other for lease extensions and ground rents, if you want.

But depending on the precise set up, some leaseholders/joint freeholders might not like that idea - and so stop it from happening.


(And none of this makes it a 'freehold flat'. And if you tell a mortgage lender that you want to apply for a mortgage for a freehold flat - they will say you can't.)

idkwhattosay

So if it's that complicated should I avoid such properties then?

eddddy

idkwhattosay wrote: »

So if it's that complicated should I avoid such properties then?

Are you a first-time buyer?

If you want to buy any leasehold flat (with or without a share of freehold) you'll need to get your head around these kind of complications.

But a freehold house is usually less complicated.