Ground rent for rental property

jaquih

As a landlord I have not received an invoice for ground rent as they have sent it to the rental property that did not forward it to me.  As a result I have been charged for 2 reminders costing £42 each and the outstanding rental from 2013. What happens in cases like this??

canaldumidi

I'm afraid this is entirely down to your failure to advise the freeholder (or their management company) of your correct address.

Your tenants are not postmen and have no obligation to forward your mail.

Had you even put Royal Mail forwarding in place?

What happens in cases like this??

Either you pay up or wait to be taken to court which will add considerably to your costs.

Just to widen the issue, does the freeholder know you are letting the property, and does your lease allow this, or require freeholder permission?

eddddy

It's a good thing your ground rent isn't over £250 (or over £1000 in London) - or your freeholder could have gone to court and got possession of your flat by now!

Your only argument might be if the freeholder agreed to send the ground rent demands to another address, but then failed to.


Otherwise £35+vat for a reminder letter sounds pretty reasonable. I doubt you'd get that reduced, if you challenged it.

Ditzy_Mitzy

As I understand it, the superior tenant (the OP) is always responsible for payment of ground rent.  It is not a cost that can be passed to the undertenant.  Just pay it and ensure that future demands are sent to the correct address; it's what I do with my let.  

canaldumidi

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

As I understand it, the superior tenant (the OP) is always responsible for payment of ground rent.  It is not a cost that can be passed to the undertenant.  Just pay it and ensure that future demands are sent to the correct address; it's what I do with my let.  

I don't think the OP is suggesting his tenants should have paid it (I may be wrong).

He is suggesting that their failure to forward the Ground Rent demand to him resulted in him defaulting on payment.

NameUnavailable

Totally the OP's issue (and fault).

What happens? You pay your arrears/charges and ensure that future demands are sent to your address instead of the property.

dimbo61

Your tenants should act in a Tenant like manner and that includes informing the Landlord if any letters arrive addressed to the Owner of a property.
A quick text or WhatsApp message could have saved you £84.
Unfortunately many of the companies buying up old Ground Rents hope to make more money from charging for letters than they will receive from the ground rent itself.
From some of the other posters on here it's always the Landlord who is bad.
See if you can buy out the ground rent as it finishes in a few years 2027 I think 

eddddy

dimbo61 said:

See if you can buy out the ground rent as it finishes in a few years 2027 I think 

What is it that finishes in 2027?

dimbo61

https://beestonshenton.co.uk/rentcharge-1977-rentcharge-act-explained/

This is a Rent charge or Chief rent.
They run out in 2037 

user1977

dimbo61 said:

This is a Rent charge or Chief rent.

I'm not sure how you've determined that from the information in the OP. It just says it's ground rent.

seven-day-weekend

The same thing happened to me once.  I just paid the fine and made sure that they had the correct correspondence address  for next time.