Doubling Of Ground Rent On Leasehold Mortgage

papps44

A couple of years ago I purchased my lease hold flat from my old landlord. I must pay an annual ground rent of £240.

Last year the flat beside me was put on the market and the tenant duly left. The landlord of that flat happened to be in the company that looked after the ground rent collection. He wanted to leave this company and so emailed me to see if I would be interested in taking the responsibility of collecting the ground rent and do other duties as a member of a limited company. He said that the work to collect rent and other tasks just took a few hours in the whole year.

 

This individual said that if I was not interested then a local estate agent would be given the role and that the ground rent would be doubled to £480 which is double what I currently pay. This is unacceptable because even the current rate I pay is not reflected in very basic maintenance or touch ups of the building.

 

I found this email to be intimidating and initially I did want to meet this person but now I am not so sure. I have no interest in taking any extra responsibility to be honest.

 

What are my rights about this crazy high increase in ground rent? I feel this is completely unfair and a tactic to force me to take on something I care little for. Please help!

[Deleted User]

You should jump at the chance to be involved in collecting/setting the ground rent rather than being subject to another party doing it.  Is he in fact offering you a share of the freehold?  Or to work for the freehold company?

eddddy

Your lease will specify your ground rent.  Your freeholder/landlord cannot decide to double your ground rent, unless it says that in the lease.

Ground rent is not used for maintenance (or touch ups) of the building.  You would pay for maintenance separately - that's called the 'service charge' - and is in addition to the ground rent.

You should try to find out a bit more about what the freeholder/landlord is proposing. It sounds like he might be offering you a share of the freehold, which might increase the value of your flat - but I suspect the freeholder/landlord will want you to pay some money for it.

steampowered

The first thing you should do is read your lease. This should state what your ground rent is. It can't just be increased by the freeholder.

Also remember that ground rent does not have anything to do with maintenance of the building. Ground rent is simply an amount of money that is owed to the freeholder. Maintenance would be paid for from a service charge.

It could be that people have got confused, and the landlord was actually talking about a service charge, not ground rent. If an estate agent is appointed to manage the building it stands to reason that they would charge a fee for that which would need to be paid by leaseholders through the service charge.