Is my freehold house leasehold?

kjwx109

I moved into a leasehold property in 2017 and promptly bought the freehold. I received an official copy of the register of title as part of this. On recently checking the Land Registry, 2 parts came back from the search, 1 freehold and 1 leasehold. I have not opened them up as this costs money, but am wondering why a leasehold element is being returned at all? The house is ex-council but has no distinguishing features.

G_M

kjwx109 wrote: »

...... I have not opened them up as this costs money,

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
Yes this is a moneysaving forum. But you are talking about an asset worth several hundred thousand pounds? And are worried about £6.00? :T

but am wondering why a leasehold element is being returned at all? The house is ex-council but has no distinguishing features.

You can apply to have the leasehold Title removed since you own both.


I assume you do own both? Oh! You dont know. Because £6.00 is such a lot of............

colesy

kjwx109 wrote: »

I moved into a leasehold property in 2017 and promptly bought the freehold. I received an official copy of the register of title as part of this. On recently checking the Land Registry, 2 parts came back from the search, 1 freehold and 1 leasehold. I have not opened them up as this costs money, but am wondering why a leasehold element is being returned at all? The house is ex-council but has no distinguishing features.

You bought the lease and then bought the freehold. Looks like both still exist, just both owned separately by you. You need to think about merging the leasehold and freehold titles.

cooltt

G_M wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
Yes this is a moneysaving forum. But you are talking about an asset worth several hundred pounds? And are worried about £6.00? :T


You can apply to have the leasehold Title removed since you own both.


I assume you do own both? Oh! You dont know. Because £6.00 is such a lot of............

I thought you had to own the leasehold for 2 years before you could buy the freehold?


Also @OP as GM said, the leasehold stays until you get it removed, it's isn't done automatacally. You could be 2 people with the same name. how would the LR know? they don't. !

becominganobsessivesaver

If you have a mortgage on the leasehold property and buy the freehold using unsecured funds then you end up with 2 titles (one for the land, one for the building) as your current lender doesn’t have security over the freehold element. I think this can be resolved when you remortgage.

eddddy

cooltt wrote: »

I thought you had to own the leasehold for 2 years before you could buy the freehold?

No... a freeholder can choose to sell their freehold to the leaseholder at any time.

But after 2 years, a leaseholder has the right to 'compulsorily purchase' the freehold - even if the freeholder doesn't want to sell.

(Subject to meeting some conditions.)

Novice_investor101

I own the leasehold & freehold to my house as separate titles, freehold bought after 3 years of leasehold ownership . My mortgage company would have charged a fee for me to merge the titles so I'm just leaving it til I'm mortgage free & will do it then.

Land_Registry

As others have posted the leasehold is only determined and merged into the freehold if that is applied for. There can be reasons why this would not happen, namely the tenures are held in a different capacity or ownership
Or the leasehold enjoys rights over other properties that the freehold does not. By determining the lease you may lose those rights.

If you own both and in the same capacity and they are mortgaged it may be nothing to concern yourself with until such time as you wish to sell or remortgage. At that time you could discuss options re merging them into a single freehold.

PasturesNew

Council properties often contain two parts, the house and the garden or part of the garden that the Council want to retain "in case" they have future plans.

You might find, say, that the house and most of the garden is freehold, but there's an odd strip at the bottom on a different title.

It's the way many of them did things ... "in case" they wanted to take/use that bit for a future access. Most are pointless. "they'd never do it" bits of land... but that's what they did.

kjwx109

Thanks for all your replies. I expect that I now own both the leasehold and freehold. I am actually in the process of selling up, and it was my conveyancer who notified me of the leasehold element. This is going to add a bit to my conveyancing costs. How expensive, lengthy and complicated is the merger of the 2 titles or the removal of the leasehold? Will it be cheaper for me to sort this out as part of the sale or to accept the conveyancing cost of selling on the leasehold along with the freehold?

Land_Registry

Registration fee for merging would be £20 (conveyancer) or £40 (you)
If done as part of the purchase registration Nil as included in the registration fee for the purchase

Conveyancers will charge their own fees of course and they will be higher where two titles are being considered

It's rarely complicated where you own both and they are registered as explained previously. And my advice would be to simply go with the sale/purchase and leave it for the buyer to merge on completion and when they register their purchase