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Advice acquiring freehold
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mastrs
Posts: 3 Newbie
Hi I would really appreciate some advice please. It's a convoluted story so i will try to keep to the facts.
I viewed a 5 bed detached house to in a lovely estate. The estate matched all our criteria and the Mrs fell in love with it, to quote it's a house she never thought we could own!
The house interior was in terrble condition due to owners letting very large dogs run riot. It looked nothing like photos on rightmove and the house was now empty..I could not understand why owner would leave a house this way and ask for 430k ( eventially going down to 395k for the home.
Other houses on the estate go for more money so I felt the house was worth the work to get it up to standard, but it would be difficult as I only had enough money for a basic renovation of 20 to 30k.
To cut along story short it transpires that the house is somehow owed by the council, i have no idea how but it seem to come from a court ruling. The estate agents can't tell me, probably due to confidentiality.
After much negotiating which i thought was with the vendors and not the council I managed to have my offer accepted. The Mrs and I were delighted.
I was told the property was freehold but the estate agents found out from the council it's leasehold. They said they didn't know. I would not have viewed the house if it was leasehold, but will now find it incredibly hard to walk away as the Mrs loves it nearly as much as our son and probably more than me:p
The estate agents are investigating how long is left on the lease and who holds it. They won't get back to us until the Tuesday at the earliest.
From my own investigation all but two of the 40 houses on the estate are freehold.
The property we want seems to have had a 99 year lease in 1997. I can see no records.of this ever being extended. However the land registry docs are not easy to follow. It seems the Freehold may have been sold on from Bellway to other companies. I know this can be their practice and this could impact the rate of ground rent increases (I have no idea what the ground rent cost is) and more importantly I understand the premium to acquire the freehold is much more expensive if its on a property will less then 80yrs.
What I want to know is how viable will it be to purchase the freehold from The 3rd party at the same time as the leasehold. I will obviously negotiate on the price of the leasehold as the house is now not worth what i offered. I would not buy the freehold after the leasehold as I've read too many stories of this being troublesome and a potential money pit!
Also i am interested in any theories on how the council came to own the property, as it's almost like it was reprocessed, which would explain the bad condition of the home.
Sorry for the long post, but any help would be greatly appreciated!
I viewed a 5 bed detached house to in a lovely estate. The estate matched all our criteria and the Mrs fell in love with it, to quote it's a house she never thought we could own!
The house interior was in terrble condition due to owners letting very large dogs run riot. It looked nothing like photos on rightmove and the house was now empty..I could not understand why owner would leave a house this way and ask for 430k ( eventially going down to 395k for the home.
Other houses on the estate go for more money so I felt the house was worth the work to get it up to standard, but it would be difficult as I only had enough money for a basic renovation of 20 to 30k.
To cut along story short it transpires that the house is somehow owed by the council, i have no idea how but it seem to come from a court ruling. The estate agents can't tell me, probably due to confidentiality.
After much negotiating which i thought was with the vendors and not the council I managed to have my offer accepted. The Mrs and I were delighted.
I was told the property was freehold but the estate agents found out from the council it's leasehold. They said they didn't know. I would not have viewed the house if it was leasehold, but will now find it incredibly hard to walk away as the Mrs loves it nearly as much as our son and probably more than me:p
The estate agents are investigating how long is left on the lease and who holds it. They won't get back to us until the Tuesday at the earliest.
From my own investigation all but two of the 40 houses on the estate are freehold.
The property we want seems to have had a 99 year lease in 1997. I can see no records.of this ever being extended. However the land registry docs are not easy to follow. It seems the Freehold may have been sold on from Bellway to other companies. I know this can be their practice and this could impact the rate of ground rent increases (I have no idea what the ground rent cost is) and more importantly I understand the premium to acquire the freehold is much more expensive if its on a property will less then 80yrs.
What I want to know is how viable will it be to purchase the freehold from The 3rd party at the same time as the leasehold. I will obviously negotiate on the price of the leasehold as the house is now not worth what i offered. I would not buy the freehold after the leasehold as I've read too many stories of this being troublesome and a potential money pit!
Also i am interested in any theories on how the council came to own the property, as it's almost like it was reprocessed, which would explain the bad condition of the home.
Sorry for the long post, but any help would be greatly appreciated!
0
Comments
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I wouldn't touch leasehold properties with a barge pole, especially ones owned by the council, historically high maintenance costs and needing to renew a lease, no thanks"It is prudent when shopping for something important, not to limit yourself to Pound land/Estate Agents"
G_M/ Bowlhead99 RIP0 -
I know hense my apprehension. However i dont think the council own the freehold and it's a detached house and not a flat so there are no common areas for maintenance costs. At least i hope there isn't!
I just can't get my head round how the council came to own it.0 -
The council may own it due to being left it in a will. The previous owner may be in a council run care home and rather than sell the house to pay for the person's care they rented it out instead. They may have bought it as an investment. It may just have been left empty for a long time and they have acquired it under newish powers that came in a few years ago rather than see it stand empty. The people you thought were the owners are actually tenants then?0
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No they definitely owned the house and they are all alive and well.
As far as I know the council should have nothing to do with the house. It's a mystery and i think it involved court action but I cannot find anything at all about this.
I really have been using my PI (stalking skills) to the best of my ability and can find nothing.0 -
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99 year lease in 1997 is now going to be 79 years. THAT's going to impact the value, not least because it's borderline unmortgageable, and a statutory extension is getting into marriage-value premium.
You need to identify the freeholder, and negotiate with them as to how much it'll cost. You cannot go down the statutory purchase route until you've owned the lease for two years, so you would need to agree a figure with the freeholder - who may decide they don't want to sell other than by waiting for that statutory demand. If you won't buy the house unless and until it's freehold, then that means you won't be buying the house...
http://www.lease-advice.org/advice-guide/houses-qualification-and-valuation/0 -
We own a house that is leashold to the council. The only cost to us is the £50 a year ground rent. But we are in the process of buying the Freehold as we are selling. Ours has 50 years remaining and will cost around £15k to buy. We also have to pay the council legal costs to. I wouldn't buy another Freehold again, we just didn't understand it when we bought 13 years ago. We moved from a flat, which was of course leasehold, so we didn't get what we where doing. With hindsight we should have bought it back then, or got the vendor to purchase it.0
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LoopyLoops wrote: »We own a house that is leashold to the council. The only cost to us is the £50 a year ground rent. But we are in the process of buying the Freehold as we are selling. Ours has 50 years remaining and will cost around £15k to buy. We also have to pay the council legal costs to. I wouldn't buy another Freehold again, we just didn't understand it when we bought 13 years ago. We moved from a flat, which was of course leasehold, so we didn't get what we where doing. With hindsight we should have bought it back then, or got the vendor to purchase it.
Do you mean you wouldn't buy another leasehold again (slightly confused)?
BF0
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