Buying A House From Chime Properties LTD / CSJ Residential

Chouhdry

I guy recently passed away who lived near me, he had no next of kin and i was interested in purchasing the property.

Therefore i went onto the landregistry site and paid £3 to get a Title Report, on that it says the owners are Chime Propertied Ltd and the house is a freehold. The registered owners and proprietr is Chime Properties Ltd.

I wrote them a letter, which i got a reponse back in a week however the letter was from CSJ Residential, it had demanded for £50 to “start the procedure” and get a valuation for that house.

I also phones CSJ Residential, but the woman on the phone sounded like she didnt know anything, as i asked her about the house and she said they own it on leasehold and the proprietor and registered owners is in their name as the property could not have been sold for a long time. The title plan says the price paid for the house in 2014, so thats not really long ago.

I decided to ask her why are you demanding a cheque to start procedures she then said it she doesnt know... i just carried on and sent the £50 cheque and hoped that someone with a brain would deal with it.

does anyone else undestand the situation???
Do i have to be cautious dealing with CSJ Residential & Chime Properties Ltd.
I can submit the Title Register if anyone wants a look at it.

davidmcn

Have you checked whether there's also a leasehold title registered for the property? All leasehold properties will also have a title for the freeholder, which may explain their confusion about why you're contacting them. The only online references I can find to Chime Properties suggest they're merely freeholders, rather than involved in equity release or the like.

It's also possible (depending on how long ago your neighbour bought) that he had a leasehold title which wasn't registered.

Chouhdry

Neighbour lived there for a good 20+ years. Usually when you check properties on HM Land Registry it gives you the option to check the freehold or leasehold title register if there is one, however for this property there was only a freehold title register, he has lived there for over 20 years but on the register it was sold to chime properties in 2014

davidmcn

In that case, as said I would suspect an unregistered leasehold title.

In any event you'd need to contact his executors - if you have no other clues about who that might be, you can try putting a note through the door.

eddddy

Based on the above, this is my guess on what's happened:

• The guy that died owned the leasehold of the house
• Chime Properties own the freehold
• CSJ Residential are the freeholder's agents

Chime Properties/CSJ Residential mistakenly believe that you are the leaseholder (or the leaseholder's representative) and you want to buy the freehold.

In these circumstances, it is common for the leaseholder to pay the freeholder a fee for calculating a price for the freehold.

When they say "start the procedure" - they mean start the procedure for a leaseholder to buy the freehold.


If this is all correct, don't get too excited when they quote you the price just for the freehold.

(For example, if it's an old house on an old-fashioned 999 year lease with a peppercorn ground rent - the freehold price might be a couple of hundred pounds.)

Chouhdry

Do you think i should get in touch with them again and discuss the whole thing again? What shall i say to them?

eddddy

Chouhdry wrote: »

Do you think i should get in touch with them again and discuss the whole thing again? What shall i say to them?

If my guess is correct, there's not really anything to discuss - you don't want to buy the freehold (you want to buy the leasehold).

In theory, you could ask them who owns the leasehold - but I would be amazed if they told you (because of data protection regs).


If they eventually mistakenly send you a letter with the freehold price, you might 'get lucky' and it contain some useful information.


Otherwise, maybe post a letter to the property saying that you're interested in buying the property. There may be a 'Royal Mail re-direct' that forwards the letter to the right person. (Or somebody might collect post from the property.)

TrickyDicky101

See davidmcn's post #4 suggesting you contact the executors.

davidmcn

Chouhdry wrote: »

Do you think i should get in touch with them again and discuss the whole thing again? What shall i say to them?

Tell them you were confused and ask for your £50 back?

Chouhdry

In the letter they had sent it says:

!!!8220;Thank you for the letter received on 16th April 2018 requesting a figure for the sale of the freehold interest of the above underlined property. The task of preparing a new valuation and sending the same incurs unavoidable charges, as such we must request our reasonable fees of £50.00. Upon reciept of your cheque in the sum of £50.00 payable to Chime Properties Limited we will be in a position to process your request.!!!8221;

I know i may be annoying but its not crystal clear so... Is it most likely to be a valuation for the conversion from leasehold to a freehold?. I!!!8217;ll just take the advice and write a letter and post it through the door asking for the purchase of the leasehold.

If i do secure the leasehold would it be easy to convert it to a freehold as the landlord is obliged to give a quote?

Chouhdry

I just wanted everyone to know that they were correct, they thought i was current leaseholder and requested £28,000