Potential House is Leasehold?

Pamholidays

Hi All,
Seven weeks into buying a property & finally had a letter from solicitors today saying the following:

The property is registered in the Registry of Deeds and so will be subject to first registration in the Land Registry. The property is leasehold and is subject to a 90 year Lease .  We enclose copy of the Lease and would be obliged if you would confirm that the map attached correctly shows the property which you intend to purchase.

This is the first we have heard about the property being a leasehold also if that isn't bad enough we are wondering why house is not on the land registry??
Surely the estate agent should of informed us of the leasehold status....I'm starting to think there was an intent to deceive Us as no mention of Freehold or Leasehold anywhere until today.

Thanks
P

greatcrested

It is not unusual for a property not to be registered at the LR. Until the late 20th C very few were, and they only get registered when they are sold (or mortgaged).

I'm going to guess the sellers are old and have lived there for 30+ years, or perhap have inheritted the property from parents who lived there that long and are now selling as Executers.

In either case, it's quite possible the sellers also did not know it was leasehold or had long forgotten.

So it's only now, when the sellers had to dig out the old paperwork to give your solicitor, that it's come to light.

The agent could only have said it was leasehold if the owners/sellers had told them, which they presumably did not.

Whether you want to proceed and buy a house on a 90 year lease is something you have to consider. Certainly I guess you'll want to consider the price again......

You might also want to look into who owns the freehold, though if that too is unregistered, and there's been no contact between freeholder and leaseholder, that might be hard.

davidmcn

Always safer to suspect that if the tenure of a house (in England or Wales) isn't mentioned then it's probably leasehold. Not being registered isn't much of an issue, just means it hasn't changed hands since registration came into force. 

Davesnave

The lease might just involve a tiny 'peppercorn' rent which isn't even collected. That was the case with my first house.

If that's so, you can maybe focus on extending or buying the lease.

greatcrested

Davesnave said:

The lease might just involve a tiny 'peppercorn' rent which isn't even collected. That was the case with my first house.

If that's so, you can maybe focus on extending or buying the lease.

hence my suggestion about identifying the freeholder. Not sure what happens if the freeholder is unidentifiable though.

The lease will name the original freeholder, but he might have died, or sold the freehold, so unless the freehold is registered, it might not be clear who the current owner is.

Clearly your sellers won't know.

Pamholidays

ok thanks but why wouldn't this be disclosed from the outset? if it was we wouldn't of even put an offer on it...surely any contract entered into needs to be open and honest!!! Feel like pulling out of the purchase

Pamholidays

I have been forwarded a lease certificate "Indenture", that names two parties one called the lessor who lives on the Estate which lists lots of rules.

Swash

Did you ask about the tenure when viewing? It's the first thing we asked when calling the EA to book a viewing as I didn't want a leasehold house. Admittedly it made no difference because we ended up offering on a leasehold house.

Pamholidays

Perhaps We are naive country bumpkins as I have never heard of Leasehold on detached houses in the country... dont know of anyone ever who lives in a leasehold house, thought it only applied to flats. 
So not a question we asked

Davesnave

So this house is part of a country estate where, perhaps, some of the tied cottages have been sold off?

FYI there are many leasehold houses , especially in some northern cities, but mine was down south. It's been such a huge problem that it remains leasehold to this day, though I moved out in 1987.

AdrianC

Pamholidays said:

ok thanks but why wouldn't this be disclosed from the outset? if it was we wouldn't of even put an offer on it...surely any contract entered into needs to be open and honest!!! Feel like pulling out of the purchase

Unregistered makes me take a guess...

For it to be unregistered, it can't have been sold in the last 30+ years. So the vendors are not in the first flush of youth. Perhaps they're no longer extant...? And it's being sold by a beneficiary of their estate?

So perhaps that information simply wasn't provided to the EA by the vendor before the listing?

You say that there was no mention on the particulars - yet you never enquired over something that's so important you now want to pull out? Well, of course you are entitled to do so - right up until exchange. In the meantime, thank your solicitor for doing their job.