Buying a house - Leasehold

Arsenal2019

Hi,

Me and my partner are looking to buy a house but have found out it is on leasehold (first time buyers). We are very interested in the properly.
It is an end terrace cottage and we are unsure how old the property is.
We are unsure how long is left on the lease and we are set to find out within the next few days after the surveyors have gone in.

Does buying a house on lease have any problems? Especially when we come to selling the house?- we look to stay in the house for a good number of years as we are extremely keen!

Note - apparently the lease hasn't been collected for several years.
What would happen if they then decide to collect the back payments for the lease when we move in? Would we owe for all those unpaid years?


Thank you in advance.

Arsenal2019

P.s- we look to doing the garden in the next few years and also put a decking on. Would we need to ask / notify the people we lease the land off?

davidmcn

You need to find out what the lease says before we can answer any of those questions. Despite all the sensational stories recently, many leases are pretty benign.

Any collection of rent arrears is limited to six years.

Arsenal2019

Okay. So we will find out all this info when the surveyor goes in?
Also, is it possible for us to turn it into a freehold ? If so is that an expensive do?

AdrianC

At most a debt is enforceable for six years.

How much is the ground rent (which is what's not been collected)? I'd guess at "a peppercorn per year".
How long is the remaining lease? I'd guess at hundreds of years, the balance of a 999 year lease.

In practice, that's not much different to freehold - except that you need to get permission from the freeholder for substantive modifications to the property.

You can get all of this for a few quid from the Land Registry's website today. The surveyor won't tell you - your solicitor will.

eddddy

Richardroberts1 wrote: »

Okay. So we will find out all this info when the surveyor goes in?

No - a surveyor will not read the lease.

Your solicitor would read the lease and tell you the answers to these questions.

As a starting point, you could just ask the seller about the length of the lease, what consents are needed for changes etc - but sellers sometimes get things wrong.

Richardroberts1 wrote: »

Also, is it possible for us to turn it into a freehold ?

Yes. Here's some info.
https://www.lease-advice.org/advice-guide/houses-qualification-valuation/

Richardroberts1 wrote: »

If so is that an expensive do?

It depends on the length of the remaining lease and the ground rent.

If it's a 999 year lease with a low ground rent (e.g. £5 per year), it would probably just be a few hundred pounds.

But legal fees etc might come to a couple of thousand pounds.

Arsenal2019

Brill okay guys! Thank you so much for your help!
I guess I'll just have to find out of the solicitors, the land registries or the sellers.
No I don't know how much the ground rent is but I can imagine it's not a great amount as they've not collected it .

Thanks again guys

G_M

I would not pay for a survey till you have the answers you need, and have decided to proceed.

Postpone the survey.

Ask the seller and/or the estate agent: they may not know and you can't rely 100% on the answers, but it might help.

Pay £3 (each) here to download the lease and freehold Titles from the Land registry.

Smodlet

Your solicitor needs to answer this question; that is what they are paid for. If the ground rent has not been collected for a number of years, I surmise it is so low the cost of collection is not worth the payment unless it is actually freehold. One would hope the seller would know that and use it as a selling point.