Properties that have both leasehold and freehold on land reg website

lcain

We bought our house 33 years ago and was sure it was leasehold but now looking on the land reg see that it is both leasehold and freehold. We understood it was a peppercorn and have never been asked for service charge etc, the lease has 900 years to run.  I have tried to register with land reg to obtain information but with covid i dont know if there are delays. Can anyone help me as i dont understand why there is a freehold on it.  We are trying for equity release will this cause a problem with the application. We have had to change our retirement plans because i have recently had a brain haemorrhage and cannot work. Many thanks.

davidmcn

The freeholder's title is also registered at the Land Registry. 

greatcrested

You own the leasehold Title.

Someone else owns the freehold. If you pay £3 and download the freehold Title you'll find out who that owner is!

NameUnavailable

You can register with Land Registry online in minutes. Then you can download the freehold title to see who owns it (although you should have that information somewhere already).

princeofpounds

Just to explain a little further...

Simplistically-speaking, 'owning' a property leasehold is actually owning a very long term rental agreement to the property. It's a very strong rental agreement that carries many rights, so strong that in many practical respects it is very similar to owning the property, but it is theoretically time-limited (and in practice that time limit is easy to extend, given how many rights leaseholders have been given over the years). Which is why we can comfortably talk about long leaseholders owning the property even if it's not accurate in the strictest sense.

Every lease is granted by whoever the original freehold owner of the land is (aka the landlord). So every leasehold property has a freehold title sitting above it, and someone will still own it. Sometimes several leasehold properties fit underneath one freehold (such as a block of flats built on one plot, for example).

However, often that freeholder is no longer very relevant to the property as they have given away so many rights over the property for such a long time. In flats, they are often responsible for maintaining the overall building and any communal areas, but with leasehold houses they are sometimes almost totally irrelevant and have no involvement for decades on end. But the title doesn't disappear.

Your situation is totally normal. It shouldn't cause any problems with equity release.