Misrepresentation. Claim back costs?

Jansenrovers

cattie wrote: »

TBH I really don't understand why you pulled out of the purchase due to finding the house was leasehold? You chose not to continue with the buying process, you didn't have to & it's unreasonable to expect any kind of reimbursment for costs. You've benefited from a lower than market rent over the years, so you've saved money from that.

You would have been given the chance to buy the freehold interest at some future point had you only been patient.

There is nothing wrong in owning a leasehold property, hundreds of thousands of owned properties are held on a leasehold basis. I've owned both leasehold & freehold & the biggest gains I've made when selling have actually been the leasehold properties surprisingly enough.

It's just the principle of it really. If a house is worth £X for the property and the land it's built on, how can it be worth the same for just the property? That's essentially saying the land is worthless, which obviously isn't correct.

Just our personal opinion really. We don't see any reason why leasehold is required for properties.

robatwork

You've avoided answering the question about the length of lease.

And come to that, what your losses are.

Jansenrovers

robatwork wrote: »

You've avoided answering the question about the length of lease.

And come to that, what your losses are.

I don't know the exact length, but apparently it is a long lease.

Losses are the costs we have incurred on solicitors fees, searches, surveys, etc.

AdrianC

Jansenrovers wrote: »

It's just the principle of it really. If a house is worth £X for the property and the land it's built on, how can it be worth the same for just the property? That's essentially saying the land is worthless, which obviously isn't correct.

Except you're still getting both the property and the land it's built on.

Not, perhaps, explicit outright ownership, but an exclusive right to use it for the next XXX years. And that's deemed by the market in general to be the same thing to all intents and purposes, therefore the value is deemed to be the same.

robatwork

AdrianC wrote: »

Except you're still getting both the property and the land it's built on.

Not, perhaps, explicit outright ownership, but an exclusive right to use it for the next XXX years. And that's deemed by the market in general to be the same thing to all intents and purposes, therefore the value is deemed to be the same.

But if he drills down and discovers gold, will this not be the freeholders?

AdrianC

robatwork wrote: »

But if he drills down and discovers gold, will this not be the freeholders?

Even if it's freehold, mineral rights may not be included.

'course, the chances of there being anything that's commercially viable to extract - and of getting planning permission to extract it - place the question somewhere around "academic"...

Davesnave

cattie wrote: »

I've owned both leasehold & freehold & the biggest gains I've made when selling have actually been the leasehold properties surprisingly enough.

Same here. Our first house was leasehold; 899 years from 1948, or something similar, and an uncollected peppercorn rent. It made 6x what we paid after 10 years.

It last sold for 38 times what we paid. The young couple across the road, are still there, but no longer young. They've done very well, however you look at it!:rotfl:

verybigchris

Check out the lease before backing out. The recent leasehold scandals have scared people off leaseholds in general when they are not all bad.

All the ex-Council houses near me are leasehold, but they are 999 year leases with a peppersorn rent. I believe they do it that way to have a certain degree of control over how the houses are used; e.g. stopping you knocking it down and replacing it with commercial premises, or painting the outside bright purple. The local leasehold documents I've looked at have absolutely nothing scary in them.