Leasehold

Mike_phillips

Hello all
I've just found out that my lease only has 44 years left to run, making my house vertually unsalable.
I was remortgaged just over 2 years ago and unbeknown to me; the mortgage company put my house down as freehold,which was not caught on the conveyance reports,
We have been quoted £7500 to purchase the lease but the leaseholder has advised that our mortgage lender should help with this purchase as it would benefit them as well as us.
Have I been missold my mortgage?
have I got a complaint to make about my leasehold?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Mike

Thrugelmir

Mike_phillips wrote: »

I've just found out that my lease only has 44 years left to run,

When did you purchase the property?

Mike_phillips

13 years ago,and from what we have been told lately we should never have been able to purchase the house as it's never had a long enough lease,

davidmcn

Mike_phillips wrote: »

Have I been missold my mortgage?

In what way have you suffered any detriment by having the mortgage?

It does however sound that you were given poor advice when you bought.

Tom99

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Its not clear who has quoted £7,500 or what exactly you get for that.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]If a house only has a 44 year lease I would expect its value to be close to half what the freehold would be worth.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]So £7,500 does not sound anywhere near.[/FONT]

amnblog

Are you saying you bought a property you were unaware was leasehold?

Or is it that you took a mortgage on a property with a 57 year lease that now has a 44 year lease and is more difficult to mortgage and you see that as the Lender's fault?

csgohan4

was the solicitor you used part of the estate agent as well?

enthusiasticsaver

It is your solicitor who should have checked the lease. The mortgage company would not even have seen it. The solicitor would have been acting for the mortgage company too so if anyone was negligent it would have been the solicitors. When you bought it there would have been only 57 years on it. I thought it flagged up as a problem when less than 70 years left. I am not sure what the relevance of the remortgage is apart from I am staggered that 2 mortgage companies and at least 1 solicitor did not realise it was a short lease.

Regardless of whether you have a claim you will need a lease extension or it will be unsaleable and £7500 is a lot better than some I have heard of. You could try contacting the conveyancer you used recently to see if you have any recourse as they should have spotted it but your original solicitor was also at fault when you bought it.

PasturesNew

When you bought the flat, presumably with the lease etc all being correct, it wasn't so much an "issue" as these days.... and now the lease is tiny and the world/rules have changed.

When you re-mortgaged and it went through as a freehold it sounds like you might've been "lucky" as that re-mortgage might've been refused at the time, giving you the headache then.

In your position .... I'd assume there's "no blame" to be attached ... and you've lost nothing monetarily .... then just buy the cheap new lease quickest before the price goes up.

Mortgage_Adviser

PasturesNew wrote: »

.. and you've lost nothing monetarily .... then just buy the cheap new lease quickest before the price goes up.

1. If OP was never made aware by his conveyancers of the short lease he has lost out monetary as he will now need to pay for renewing the lease.
2. Renewing the lease 13 years ago would've cost OP less , so that another monetary loss he has made.