Awful house buying experience

Gavin83

MascoloStatusCorp said:

Gavin83 said:

MascoloStatusCorp said:

Gavin83 said:

Excuse my naivety on this but if the freeholder can't be found then who exactly are you pay the rent to?

It's not about the rent, it's more about the lack of control.

That's not my point. They're saying it's impossible to find the freehold title or anyone associated with it. If that's the case then who would the rent be paid to? Surely the person receiving the rent would be the person holding the title.

Apparently the vendor hasn't paid it in years. 

I agree with a lot of what you say. I'm also looking for a house as a FTB at the moment and I'm struggling with the market. I also wouldn't look to buy a leasehold house. However if the vendor hasn't paid the rent in years, no one appears to hold the title anymore and it was my dream house I'd probably go ahead. It is always somewhat of a gamble but it appears in this case the title is virtually meaningless.

Good luck, it's painful out there at the moment.

MascoloStatusCorp

Gavin83 said:

MascoloStatusCorp said:

Gavin83 said:

MascoloStatusCorp said:

Gavin83 said:

Excuse my naivety on this but if the freeholder can't be found then who exactly are you pay the rent to?

It's not about the rent, it's more about the lack of control.

That's not my point. They're saying it's impossible to find the freehold title or anyone associated with it. If that's the case then who would the rent be paid to? Surely the person receiving the rent would be the person holding the title.

Apparently the vendor hasn't paid it in years. 

I agree with a lot of what you say. I'm also looking for a house as a FTB at the moment and I'm struggling with the market. I also wouldn't look to buy a leasehold house. However if the vendor hasn't paid the rent in years, no one appears to hold the title anymore and it was my dream house I'd probably go ahead. It is always somewhat of a gamble but it appears in this case the title is virtually meaningless.

Good luck, it's painful out there at the moment.

Thank you. Good luck to you too mate.

Stubod

I think you are overthinking this "leasehold" problem, particularly if there are significant years left. If you like the house and it's what you want then just go for it...

sammyjammy

I'm in Sheffield and the houses on one side of my street are leasehold and my side freehold, if you are looking at older houses you could potentially be losing out on 50% of the market.  I doubt any of those people have ever had an issue or thought they don't own their house, as said if it bothers you that much drop a few grand from your purchase price and purchase the freehold after you've moved in.

AdrianC

MascoloStatusCorp said:

I wanted to be freeholder when I bought my first house, not someone who pays for the privilege to stay in some rooms for 900 years.

Ooookay. Let's not get too dramatic about it.

A very long lease like that really is near-as-dammit the same thing, especially with an absent freeholder who (quite likely) doesn't even know they ARE the freeholder.

MascoloStatusCorp said:

Gavin83 said:

MascoloStatusCorp said:

Gavin83 said:

Excuse my naivety on this but if the freeholder can't be found then who exactly are you pay the rent to?

It's not about the rent, it's more about the lack of control.

That's not my point. They're saying it's impossible to find the freehold title or anyone associated with it. If that's the case then who would the rent be paid to? Surely the person receiving the rent would be the person holding the title.

Apparently the vendor hasn't paid it in years. 

If you have difficulty finding the six peppercorns, I can lend you some. The interest rate won't be too exorbitant, I promise.

MascoloStatusCorp

AdrianC said:

MascoloStatusCorp said:

I wanted to be freeholder when I bought my first house, not someone who pays for the privilege to stay in some rooms for 900 years.

Ooookay. Let's not get too dramatic about it.

A very long lease like that really is near-as-dammit the same thing, especially with an absent freeholder who (quite likely) doesn't even know they ARE the freeholder.

MascoloStatusCorp said:

Gavin83 said:

MascoloStatusCorp said:

Gavin83 said:

Excuse my naivety on this but if the freeholder can't be found then who exactly are you pay the rent to?

It's not about the rent, it's more about the lack of control.

That's not my point. They're saying it's impossible to find the freehold title or anyone associated with it. If that's the case then who would the rent be paid to? Surely the person receiving the rent would be the person holding the title.

Apparently the vendor hasn't paid it in years. 

If you have difficulty finding the six peppercorns, I can lend you some. The interest rate won't be too exorbitant, I promise.

You're a funny guy.

princeofpounds

MascoloStatusCorp said:

lookstraightahead said:

To be fair op you're taking on a mortgage so theoretically the house isn't "yours" til you own it outright ie the bank have first refusal.
so you might be overthinking the leasehold bit.

I understand that. Either way, it was this website who, when I found out about the Leasehold and came to see if anyone had a similar issue, said they would steer clear of a leasehold because it's more trouble than its worth - lol. I will take things I see here with a pinch of salt.

There are a small handful of people on this board who seem allergic to the idea of leasehold, but that doesn't mean they are sensible people, or that they are the people who know the most about leasehold tenure on this board.

The vast majority of people who live in leasehold property in this country do so quite happily. That's especially true when you are talking about older houses, which don't face the issues of communal management which affect flats, or the more recent semi-exploitative behaviour of newbuild developers.

In the case of flats specifically, people often have trouble distinguishing between problems that are just caused by bad management - which can affect leasehold flats, share-of-freehold flats or even freehold flats in Scotland - and the problems genuinely caused by issues that actually concern leasehold tenure.

Skiddaw1

Forgive me for asking but is it definitely leasehold? It sounds more like a rentcharge to me. Either way, as has been said, very common with older properties. There was technically a rentcharge on our previous (freehold) house but no one had collected/paid it for years. There was also a covenant preventing us from selling alcohol or opening a dairy but it didn't cause us any problems.

AdrianC

Skiddaw1 said:

There was also a covenant preventing us from selling alcohol or opening a dairy but it didn't cause us any problems.

We've had similar on freeholds.

Sunsaru

Tbh, I'm more with the OP with this one. As an FTB one of my preference was that the house was freehold and anything leasehold got a small sigh of disappointment but I went and viewed it anyway.. It's not necessarily about having a problem with leasehold but, and you may think this silly, it's more that as a FTB who had always dreamed of owning his own house, I had this little wish/want/need that the house is literally "all mine". I got my wish eventually.

Saying that, I almost bought a house last year that was leasehold. 100+ years old and the vendor hadn't paid rent in the 6 years she'd lived there. I also planned to buy the freehold at some point. Shame it fell through, was a really nice house that.

OP, if leasehold really is on your red flag list then don't do it but many people live with it just fine.