Freeholder of New Build Flat Disposing of Freehold

cheap-information

Ah, so they couldn't increase the ground rent then without my permission?

AdrianC

cheap-information wrote: »

Ah, so they couldn't increase the ground rent then without my permission?

I can't read your current lease from here.

But, yes, to change your current lease would require your agreement. That agreement usually comes in the form of a cheap up-front price for a lease extension.

NeilCr

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/leaseholders_rights/ground_rent

A bit more information

G_M

cheap-information wrote: »

I will have to see what the other owners have to say, sadly they are mostly located in Hong Kong and so contact will be difficult.

You may be pleasantly surprised, but if these are HK based investors who let their flats out, I doubt they will be interested in buying the freehold. Indeed most will probobly not even respond to you.

How many leaseholders are UK based? And how many actually occupy their flats? (and what's the total number of flats?). Are there enough to get the requisit number of interested parties?

cheap-information

G_M wrote: »

You may be pleasantly surprised, but if these are HK based investors who let their flats out, I doubt they will be interested in buying the freehold. Indeed most will probobly not even respond to you.

How many leaseholders are UK based? And how many actually occupy their flats? (and what's the total number of flats?). Are there enough to get the requisit number of interested parties?

Only 3 of the 24 flats are owned by UK based individuals. I have now contacted the other HK owners and awaiting responses..

Another question I have is that I have received a new letter from the developers and this is a Section 5A about another lease....

They have offered us the 5 x 'airspace leases' for £345,000 plus ground rents totalling £1,750 per annum and subject to the standard conditions of sale.

I get the general idea about airspace but to be honest I am rather confused by it, they are asking £345k for this and £245k for the freehold of the building.

Could anyone offer any insight or translate the above statement? I don't really understand the 5 separate airspace leases and the £1,750 ground rent?

eddddy

cheap-information wrote: »

They have offered us the 5 x 'airspace leases' for £345,000 plus ground rents totalling £1,750 per annum and subject to the standard conditions of sale.

I get the general idea about airspace but to be honest I am rather confused by it, they are asking £345k for this and £245k for the freehold of the building.

Could anyone offer any insight or translate the above statement? I don't really understand the 5 separate airspace leases and the £1,750 ground rent?

My guess would be that they are selling 2 separate things:

1) A freehold subject to 29 leases, for £245k

24 of the leases relate to actual flats. 5 of the leases relate to airspace (i.e. potential flats)

The ground rent income from the 5 airspace leases totals £1750pa (i.e. £350 per airspace)
The ground rent income from the 24 leases is ???? (24 x £350 perhaps???)

2) A job lot of 5 airspace leaseholds for £345k

The ground rent payable on each leasehold is £350. i.e. 5 x 350 in total.

I would imagine that an investment company might buy the freehold (in order to get the ground rents) - the yield from ground rents looks like about 4%

I would imagine that a developer would by the airspace leaseholds for £345k, in order to build 5 flats and sell them at £300k? each - or £1.5m in total.

G_M

cheap-information wrote: »

Only 3 of the 24 flats are owned by UK based individuals. I have now contacted the other HK owners and awaiting responses..

I'm afraid you are wasting your time.

You need (50%?) of the leaseholders to agree to jointly purchase the freehold I believe.

The chances of that many responding let alone agreeing, is remote.

Happy to be proved wrong - let us know!

cheap-information

eddddy wrote: »

My guess would be that they are selling 2 separate things:

1) A freehold subject to 29 leases, for £245k

24 of the leases relate to actual flats. 5 of the leases relate to airspace (i.e. potential flats)

The ground rent income from the 5 airspace leases totals £1750pa (i.e. £350 per airspace)
The ground rent income from the 24 leases is ???? (24 x £350 perhaps???)

2) A job lot of 5 airspace leaseholds for £345k

The ground rent payable on each leasehold is £350. i.e. 5 x 350 in total.

I would imagine that an investment company might buy the freehold (in order to get the ground rents) - the yield from ground rents looks like about 4%

I would imagine that a developer would by the airspace leaseholds for £345k, in order to build 5 flats and sell them at £300k? each - or £1.5m in total.

Surely the 'developer' would need to own the Freehold to make use of the airspace lease? I can't believe they could build ontop of our freehold building without our consent?

cheap-information

G_M wrote: »

I'm afraid you are wasting your time.

You need (50%?) of the leaseholders to agree to jointly purchase the freehold I believe.

The chances of that many responding let alone agreeing, is remote.

Happy to be proved wrong - let us know!

Actually having more luck than you may think, have around 6 responses so far.

cheap-information

eddddy wrote: »

My guess would be that they are selling 2 separate things:

1) A freehold subject to 29 leases, for £245k

24 of the leases relate to actual flats. 5 of the leases relate to airspace (i.e. potential flats)

The ground rent income from the 5 airspace leases totals £1750pa (i.e. £350 per airspace)
The ground rent income from the 24 leases is ???? (24 x £350 perhaps???)

2) A job lot of 5 airspace leaseholds for £345k

The ground rent payable on each leasehold is £350. i.e. 5 x 350 in total.

I would imagine that an investment company might buy the freehold (in order to get the ground rents) - the yield from ground rents looks like about 4%

I would imagine that a developer would by the airspace leaseholds for £345k, in order to build 5 flats and sell them at £300k? each - or £1.5m in total.

If there are 24 flats paying 24 ground rents at the moment, who is paying for the airspace leases or have I missed the point?