Charge from leasehold company

Hij

Hi, Sorry I don't know what forum to post in. We own our home but the ground it sits on is leasehold. We pay £550 per year rent. We want to build a conservatory the management company have come back to us and said for permission we must pay £2,500.


Is this change acceptable or are we bring ripped off? The leasehold keeps on swapping company's and we have not got notification that the yearly charge has gone up. Just the bill from them.

eddddy

You probably need to clarify a bit.

Do you mean you own the leasehold of a house, and you are asking the freeholder's management company for consent to build a conservatory?

Or perhaps you own the freehold of a house, but you lease the garden and you want to build on the leased land?

Hij

Hi,
We we are on the leasehold for the grounds the house sits on (actual house is excluded) we need to ask the freeholder's management company for consent to build a conservatory.

Marktheshark

I hope you took this in to account buying the house, that is a very restrictive convent that would put many buyers off

eddddy

So if £2,500 is just an admin charge for giving consent for the conservatory, it sounds very high and you could probably challenge it. See: http://www.lease-advice.org/faq/what-can-i-do-if-i-disagree-with-an-administration-charge/


An alternative approach could be to just buy your freehold, so that you don't need to ask for consent for stuff like this...

... but at £550, your ground rent is very high, so the freehold will be expensive. (Did somebody agree to a bad lease extension to end up with such a high ground rent?)

Hij

Hi, when buying the house we were not given a breakdown of charges etc only that we need to ask permission.

Hij

.. but at £550, your ground rent is very high, so the freehold will be expensive. (Did somebody agree to a bad lease extension to end up with such a high ground rent?)[/QUOTE]

Hi,
Thank you I will check that out. They are Redrow Homes with a 999 year lease. We don't even pay service charge (yet!) it is crazy. £600 for the permission from the permission then the other £600 for someone to come out after it is built