Buying land on an existing property

angieo1970

We've seen a freehold bungalow for sale, asking price 170k but it states the front and rear gardens do not belong to the property and currently owned by the leaseholder who rents them for 1300 per year. However, if we buy the bungalow there's an option to buy the gardens (land) for an extra 25k.  Asked the esrate agent are we paying 25k for the lease on the land so we only habe it for 99 years but they said, if we buy the gardens we become sole owners so the bungalow and gardens would be ours, nothing would then be leasehold. I'm guesding our solicitor would add the gardens to our deeds to make it all freehold?

Another question would be if we decided to buy the bungalow we know we can offer less than the asking price but can we do this for the gardens ? So offer 160k for the bungalow and 20k for the gardens? Never come across this before? 

Slithery

angieo1970 said:

I'm guesding our solicitor would add the gardens to our deeds to make it all freehold?

No. You would end up owning 2 different things - the freehold of the land the property sits on and the freehold for the extra gardens. There is no point in combining the 2 titles so LR won't do it.

angieo1970 said:

Another question would be if we decided to buy the bungalow we know we can offer less than the asking price but can we do this for the gardens ? So offer 160k for the bungalow and 20k for the gardens?

Of course you can. But remember that you are buying 2 different things from 2 different sellers. Either none, one or both of them can chooses whether or not to accept your reduced offer.

AdrianC

The bungalow owner has leased the gardens to somebody in the past. Probably the gardens became too much for an elderly occupant, but they didn't want them to go to wasteland.

That somebody is amenable to you buying the lease off them.

canaldumidi

Check the titles for yourself

1) What is the extent of the bungalow freehold? Buy the Freehold Title & Plan and see where the boundary is.

2) is there a separate freehold title for the gardens or are they included in 1) above?

3) who owns the freehold title(s)?

4) buy the leasehold title and plan for the gardens. Check the boundary

5) who owns the leasehold title?

Assuming they are owned by 2 different people you'll be coordinating two purchases with 2 people. You can obviously negotiate price of either, or both, with the relevant owner(s).

eddddy

It's not 100% clear what you mean.

Are you saying that the person selling owns the freehold of the whole property (house and all the gardens), but has leased the gardens to somebody else?

Or are you saying that the person selling owns the freehold of the house, but doesn't own the freehold of the gardens - they lease the gardens from somebody else?

canaldumidi

eddddy said:

It's not 100% clear what you mean.

Are you saying that the person selling owns the freehold of the whole property (house and all the gardens), but has leased the gardens to somebody else?

Or are you saying that the person selling owns the freehold of the house, but doesn't own the freehold of the gardens - they lease the gardens from somebody else?

Indeed. That's pretty much what I was trying to establish with my questions above!

angieo1970

The person selling owns the freehold to the property but doesn't own the gardens.  Somebody else owns the gardens and is currently charging 1300.00 per year to use them. However, he has advised the estate agent that he is willing to sell the gardens to whoever buys the property for 25k.

eddddy

angieo1970 said:

The person selling owns the freehold to the property but doesn't own the gardens.  Somebody else owns the gardens and is currently charging 1300.00 per year to use them. However, he has advised the estate agent that he is willing to sell the gardens to whoever buys the property for 25k.

So you'd want to buy 2 things - the freehold house and the freehold garden.

• You might find that the estate agent is being over optimistic, and the owner of the garden hasn't expressed a keen interest in selling and/or £25k is just a guess. So maybe make some investigations around that first.

• You would then make offers on both properties and get those offers accepted - presumably, you're not interested unless you can get both offers accepted.

• Your legal fees would be higher than usual, as you're doing 2 transactions

• You'd be dealing with 2 different sellers, rather than 1 - which might be twice the frustration and stress, if they're both difficult. Or there might be no problems at all.

• You'd instruct your solicitor to make them dependent transactions. So you exchange contracts on both at the same time, and cannot end up with just one property - you either get both or none.

• In theory, you could keep the 2 titles separate - but your mortgage lender might insist that they are amalgamated into one title. That will add to your legal fees.