Ground rent scandal - PETITION

kinger101

economic wrote: »

Will cost too much for the taxpayer in terms of regulation. Unless you make the developer and estate agents pay extra taxes for this.

Er.....not really. It's just needs a statutory instrument. I'm generally against the idea of hypothecation, but I think a small levy on horrible pointy brown shoes, blue pinstripe suits and brylcream would cover it.

economic

A far better way is to educate potential buyers about these sorts of things. Maybe have a flyer or small booklet with all the information including why not to use a developers own solicitor (due to conflict of interest).

That way its much cheaper and the buyer is forced to think about this things rather then foolishly and blindly going into transactions they really don't know anything about.

Foolishness should not be subsidized by anyone.

economic

kinger101 wrote: »

Er.....not really. It's just needs a statutory instrument. I'm generally against the idea of hypothecation, but I think a small levy on horrible pointy brown shoes, blue pinstripe suits and brylcream would cover it.

whos going to monitor every transaction to make sure the estate agents and developers are doing "right"?

Its easy to pass laws. much harder and much more expensive to actually enforce them.

As i said it should be paid for by the estate agents and developers, but guess who they will pass on their costs too??? Thats right the foolish people who buy and sell properties and much more importantly the not so foolish people who do the same. Thats why i actually dont like the idea of the law at all.

kinger101

economic wrote: »

A far better way is to educate potential buyers about these sorts of things. Maybe have a flyer or small booklet with all the information including why not to use a developers own solicitor (due to conflict of interest).

That way its much cheaper and the buyer is forced to think about this things rather then foolishly and blindly going into transactions they really don't know anything about.

Foolishness should not be subsidized by anyone.

I think a statutory instrument is much cheaper than printing booklets nobody would read. If you agree there's a conflict of interest, it ought to be banned.

cjmillsnun

Crashy_Time wrote: »

That is open to debate, doubt it happens much nowadays.

It may not happen where you are Crashy, but it does happen in the south of England. Not on every property (I have been relatively lucky) but I do know of it happening. Thankfully I am not renting anymore.

cjmillsnun

ASGM wrote: »

Ground rent must be ABOLISHED for ALL leases, not just new ones

Onerous ground rent clauses must become a thing of the past: people with doubling ground rent are now struggling to sell their properties.

Please sign and most importantly SHARE the following petition:

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/214195
(copy and paste the above in your browser as I am not able to post links as a new user)

We need 100,000 signatures for the Parliament to debate on it

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I agree that ground rent should be fair and not be subject to clauses that increase it drastically every 10-15 years, however someone owns the freehold on this land. To abolish ground rent entirely would make that freehold worthless. What would happen is that no new leasehold properties at all would be built. Whilst for houses this is fine, I am opposed to leasehold houses, this would give an issue in that no new flats (or if you want to be American, apartments) would be built.

IMO flats are an essential in the housing mix.

Another side effect is that if existing leases had their ground rent removed, the freeholders would be unwilling to extend leases, meaning that these leasehold properties would effectively become unmortgageable, therefore very difficult for the leaseholder to sell.

So whilst I think it is fair that ground rents were made fair and reasonable, abolition is the wrong thing to do.

economic

kinger101 wrote: »

I think a statutory instrument is much cheaper than printing booklets nobody would read. If you agree there's a conflict of interest, it ought to be banned.

But how do you know an independent solicitor would have done a better job i.e. to tell the buyer to run away from the purchase and thank you for the £1000?? I dont think so.

An independent solicitor would have most likely done the same thing. As i said its not the solicitors job to determine valuations. Thats a surveyors job which is entirely optional for the buyer.

A solicitor should outline legal obligations by the buyer and make sure the title is in good order for both the buyer and lender. The solicitor may say you have to pay ground rent of x which doubles every 10 years but why should the solicitor say that thats a lot and you should run away? The solicitor has no idea about the property market and how much demand there is for such a property. Only the surveyor knows this.

Regulating it is just so stupid it doesn't even come close to thinking about what the real issue is. As i said there should be a booklet with information for the buyer about what ground rents are, how they affect property prices, how to buy the freehold, why it makes sense to have a proper market survey done etc. Just because many of the people who bought these leasehold properties and are now complaining are lazy and stupid so they need information in a booklet to spoonfeed them.

economic

cjmillsnun wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I agree that ground rent should be fair and not be subject to clauses that increase it drastically every 10-15 years, however someone owns the freehold on this land. To abolish ground rent entirely would make that freehold worthless. What would happen is that no new leasehold properties at all would be built. Whilst for houses this is fine, I am opposed to leasehold houses, this would give an issue in that no new flats (or if you want to be American, apartments) would be built.

IMO flats are an essential in the housing mix.

Another side effect is that if existing leases had their ground rent removed, the freeholders would be unwilling to extend leases, meaning that these leasehold properties would effectively become unmortgageable, therefore very difficult for the leaseholder to sell.

So whilst I think it is fair that ground rents were made fair and reasonable, abolition is the wrong thing to do.

what do you mean by fair? Why do you think high ground rents are not fair?

Look at one of my post above. Ground rents are a form of FINANCING!!!

If you have a law to say ground rents should be small say £100 a year doubling every 25 years, then it is the developers profit margin you are hitting and you may not make it worthwhile for the developer to build new houses int he first place. The developer could also always take the hit and accept the smaller profit margin or they could raise the sales price and the buyer gets hit anyway but upfront - you could price some buyers out completely.

There is no simpe way around this and saying that "ground rents should be fair" is a stupid and delusional thing to say.

davidmcn

cjmillsnun wrote: »

I am opposed to leasehold houses, this would give an issue in that no new flats (or if you want to be American, apartments) would be built.

IMO flats are an essential in the housing mix.

But there's no particular reason why flats need to be leasehold. We manage fine without leasehold residential properties in Scotland.