Shared Ownership Lease

djjz13

This might be a really stupid question but bear with me.

I'm just purchasing a flat, we're pre-exchange and completion but post mortgage valuation/offer etc.

We've just been sent a copy of the existing lease. Our sellers originally bought the flat on shared ownership and then bought the rest. Therefore their lease has lots of provisions to do with rent and what you can/can't do with a rented property.

When the sale goes through, will a new copy of the lease be issued without all the erroneous clauses etc? Or will we have to clarify what still applies versus what doesn't?

Also - if we have some particularly onerous clauses (no pets for example) can we get them changed or challenge them?

eddddy

You are buying the existing lease - so you will be subject to all the terms in that lease.

You will be free to ask the freeholder to change the terms of the lease, but the freeholder will be equally free to refuse (and usually will refuse).


But if you're not renting part of the property (i.e. you fully own it), the terms in the lease that only apply to rented properties won't apply to you.

djjz13

Hmm interesting.
Thanks for your reply.
I'll have to get my conveyancer's to be very clear about what is and isn't applicable.

Kynthia

I know someone who bought a shared ownership property that had been staircased to full ownership. I think there was a deed of variation or something similar that referenced which clauses in the lease that no longer applied.

neilio

I am a former-shared-ownership-now-fully-staircased leaseholder, currently trying to sell my flat, and I have come up against this issue of restrictions on the title, which is basically a big hangover from being former shared ownership.

My solicitor tells me that, after having staircased, the restrictions are not legally enforceable. However, some purchaser solicitors and mortgage lenders are still uncomfortable with this and request the Deed of Variation be raised to null and void the restriction, despite not being a necessary legal requirement.

It's causing me a lot of stress because it prolonging the process of conveying the sale by several weeks, but I can understand why the buyer might wonder what it means.

It's nothing to worry about, but it's obviously an oversight from when the shared ownership scheme came into being.

Richard_Webster

Well drafted shared ownership leases have a clause that says that once the lease has been fully staircased certain clauses (which are then listed) do not apply.

However I think you will find that a lot of the clauses will still apply.