How Much is your Ground Rent?

rjm67

Hi All,

I own a 1982, 2 bed flat in Norwich where the freeholder wants to raise the ground rent from £50 to £1200 a year. Total rip off to me. I am curious to know from others what ground rent they pay, so if anybody would be willing to tell me, it might help me get an idea of rates around the county. Looking for location, age, type of property, and current rate.

Any feedback would really be appreciated in our fight over this one.

Cheers

dmg24

OMG! That is crazy, is there nothing in the lease to limit how much they can increase it by?

Mine is £50 a year, and I am now going to check my lease to see if I am protected from such an increase!

Is the landlord a company or an individual? x

BobProperty

Sounds very unusual but if they are allowed to do it, they can. (It hasn't changed hands recently has it?). You need to check the lease / ground rent agreement then think about suing your solicitor for not noticing it :eek:

hedgehogpenguin

They can't raise the ground rent by this amount. This will be stated in the lease. However it sounds like he is introducing a service charge to build up a kitty for repairs etc. This I believe he can do.

CB1979_2

mine's £35 every 6 months

and we now pay £50 pcm into for "servicing" so £400 pcm from all leaseholders.

olly300

Ground rent = £10 per year.

kissingthepink

£75 per annum for a 1 bed flat for the first 33 years. It rises to £150 after 33 years, and then increases to £225 from year 66 to 99. Your lease should stipulate the ground rent payable for the entire lease period. Check your lease very carefully - I cannot understand how it can rise by such a huge amount.

Badger_Lady

Mine was a peppercorn rent, i.e. £0.

When I was looking for flats, I did find some that were around the £1200 mark - mainly beautiful period conversions in desireable areas - and this frankly put me off buying one.

So it is possible to charge this much, but that sounds like a hell of a leap! Surely there needs to be some kind of protection against that sort of rent rise? After all, it's not like you can opt out...

jillie1974

ours is £10
thats for a mid terrace early 1900's house
and it is due evey christmas eve!!
to buy it out it costs £950 so its not worth it...

Woby_Tide

rjm67 wrote: »

Hi All,

I own a 1982, 2 bed flat in Norwich where the freeholder wants to raise the ground rent from £50 to £1200 a year. Total rip off to me. I am curious to know from others what ground rent they pay, so if anybody would be willing to tell me, it might help me get an idea of rates around the county. Looking for location, age, type of property, and current rate.

Any feedback would really be appreciated in our fight over this one.

Cheers

1982 - 2007 is 25 years, I've seen a few leases (including ours on a flat a few years back) that had increases at the 25/50/75 year marks. From memory ours would have been £100 > £500 > £1000 or some such at each increment. The increase to £1200 whilst quite a lot, if it was in the lease that you agreed to then there is not much you can do. If you weren't aware of this fact then the pssible recourse is via the conveyancer who should have established this at the time. I know of a friend who has just come to the end of a 3 year legal battle in similar circumstances that ruled against the solicitors for not making them aware of the fact. They have been compensated for that but the flats in the block now sell for about 10% less than similar flats close by as the freeholder won't amend the lease and the ground rent charges are £1200pa compared to around £100pa for most similar properties so people are factoring that into the prices that they are prepared to pay for the property

Woby_Tide

Badger_Lady wrote: »

After all, it's not like you can opt out...

you don't buy the place and sign the lease is the best opt out