Historic rentcharge - advice please!

ratechaser

Morning all - a property I'm managing as executor as part of an estate has a historic rentcharge registered. The property was purchased 6 years ago, I've got no documentation to indicate if the charge has ever been paid by the previous owner, or if this was raised by the conveyancer at the point of purchase (given that it would have been eligible for redemption under section 8 of the 1977 rentcharges act). All I know is the amount due (a few pounds per year in perpetuity), when it started (over 100 years ago), and who it is due to (the local council).

So my objective is to remove any risk that the rent owner could register a lease on the land, due to arrears that I'd say are 99.99% certain to exist. Ideally I'd want to get the charge redeemed (assuming it's a nominal fee, otherwise it can roll until 2037 when it would be abolished anyway), and clear any arrears.

But... with the lack of any documentation, I'm wary of calling the council as that could prod the bear and give them the opportunity to register a lease before I could even identify and pay any arrears due. This might be an outside risk - not sure if councils are in the habit of taking this sort of Machiavellian action, but right now I'm thinking worst case scenarios.

alternatively, is there a
maximum amount of years of rentcharge arrears that could be demanded, because if so, I could send a cheque to the council for that maximum as a preemptive measure?

Any suggestions welcome! The alternative would be to just ignore it because it may well be that it's been ignored for many many years now, but given my executor role, I would rather do this properly!

thanks
RC

greatcrested

The maximum that can be claimed is 6 years back-dated rentcharge.

http://www.hip-consultant.co.uk/blog/convenants-rentcharges-123/

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rentcharges