Leasehold 1930s semi - 985yrs remaining

Giddypip

My first house in Warrington (between Liverpool and Manchester) was a 999 year lease. £5 ground rent every 6 months never got paid due to absent landlord. When I sold 6 years later I 'gave' my buyer £60 in case landlord turned up and wanted back rent. These types of leaseholds are very common in certain areas and you would struggle to buy a house without one. 

user1977

NameUnavailable said:

OTOH if the freeholder suddenly pops up, they could start applying all conditions of the lease and undertaking maintenance of the properties that you will have to pay for.

It's pretty unlikely that a lease of this nature has any material conditions, or an obligation on the freeholder to maintain the property (why would they even want to)?

A modern freehold title is likely to contain much more in the way of restrictions and liabilities - the notion of freehold=good, leasehold=evil is rather simplistic and unhelpful.

wend33

Without reading the lease all of the above is guesswork. First job : read the lease 😁
Check what is demised, what rent is payable and any tenants covenants. Also is there an alienation clause.

TripleH

Where we rent the houses have a similar setup with absentee freeholder.

Our neighbour sends a cheque for ground rent to the last address he has as contact for the freeholder (keeping a photo) as evidence he has tried to pay the ground rent. None of these cheques have ever been cashed.

If he is asked to pay, the rent is not a lot.

eddddy

TripleH said:

Where we rent the houses have a similar setup with absentee freeholder.

Our neighbour sends a cheque for ground rent to the last address he has as contact for the freeholder (keeping a photo) as evidence he has tried to pay the ground rent. None of these cheques have ever been cashed.

If he is asked to pay, the rent is not a lot.

The law says that ground rent is only payable if it is correctly demanded. 

i.e. If the freeholder doesn't send a bill (in the correct format), no ground rent is payable.  So there's no real need to go through that process.

And if the freeholder should turn up and start sending bills, only the last 6 years of ground rent is payable.


(But the bigger risk would be if the freeholder doesn't have your up-to-date contact details, and is sending bills to an empty property, or an old address, or tenants aren't forwarding mail. And perhaps the bills have a new address for the freeholder, and/or new bank details.)

NQManchester

As others have said, in my area a really large proportion of houses have this type of lease so you’d be hard to avoid. 

Only issues I’ve heard from people is having to pay fees (hundreds) for permission if they want to do any house alterations. Not sure how that’d work if your freeholder is indeed absent but there seem to be companies who buy up full streets worth of freeholds to then presumably make profit from these fees. 

Jenni_D

eddddy said:

(But the bigger risk would be if the freeholder doesn't have your up-to-date contact details, and is sending bills to an empty property, or an old address, or tenants aren't forwarding mail. And perhaps the bills have a new address for the freeholder, and/or new bank details.)

Can you elaborate on that please? Surely (in the context of this thread) the freeholder would be writing to the address of the leasehold property?

user1977

Jenni_D said:

eddddy said:

(But the bigger risk would be if the freeholder doesn't have your up-to-date contact details, and is sending bills to an empty property, or an old address, or tenants aren't forwarding mail. And perhaps the bills have a new address for the freeholder, and/or new bank details.)

Can you elaborate on that please? Surely (in the context of this thread) the freeholder would be writing to the address of the leasehold property?

Yes, which is fine if that's where you live.

Jenni_D

user1977 said:

Jenni_D said:

eddddy said:

(But the bigger risk would be if the freeholder doesn't have your up-to-date contact details, and is sending bills to an empty property, or an old address, or tenants aren't forwarding mail. And perhaps the bills have a new address for the freeholder, and/or new bank details.)

Can you elaborate on that please? Surely (in the context of this thread) the freeholder would be writing to the address of the leasehold property?

Yes, which is fine if that's where you live.

Sorry but I don't understand ... why wouldn't you be living there if you're the leaseholder? (Remember, we're talking in the context of this thread, not generally about BTL or anything).

wend33

Jenni_D said:

eddddy said:

(But the bigger risk would be if the freeholder doesn't have your up-to-date contact details, and is sending bills to an empty property, or an old address, or tenants aren't forwarding mail. And perhaps the bills have a new address for the freeholder, and/or new bank details.)

Can you elaborate on that please? Surely (in the context of this thread) the freeholder would be writing to the address of the leasehold property?

An owner doesn't necessarily live at the property but if they keep their address up to date at the Land Registry there should always be a way to contact them