My property is leasehold, do I have to tell the ground rent people?

MancMan123

Evening all, as you know from my 1st post I am thinking of getting solar panels fitted to the roof of my 1970s detached house.

I am lucky in that I do not have a mortgage on the property, but I do pay £50/year to a london company for some reason or other :-(

Do I have to tell this company what I am doing, and pay them an absurd amount for doing it, or it is not needed.

If and when I come to sell the property can I just get an indemnity policy (from my solicitor I think) to cover me?

(I have tried doing a search for the answer but I am not to sure how to finf things on tie forum as it only comes up with 5 answers)

Thank you

Alnat1

A Lease from the 70s obviously won't mention solar panels but it might be worth checking what changes do need to be notified and if solar could be covered under any of the categories. As you're not making a change to the actual structure then I would doubt that it needs approval.

I was surprised that my insurance company wasn't really interested in the fact I'd added panels. The advisor added a manual note to our file to say we had them but she said there wasn't a box to tick. Seems they haven't considered the risk of an inverter setting on fire (has this ever happened?)

MancMan123

Brilliant, thanks for the quick reply Alnat1, also the one I was just about to ask about house insurance :-) 

Grumpy_chap

It's probably worth checking in the leasehold documents that you do actually "own" the roof.  I suspect you do as it is a leasehold house rather than flat / maisonette.

Try, if you can, to reach an answer without having to approach the Freeholder to whom the ground rent is paid.  It's just, if you ask, the Freeholder might try it on and see an opportunity somewhere, somehow.

As an aside, if this is an original lease from 1970, that's 52 years ago.  What was the original lease term and has it been extended?  If not, you may find that the financial priority is securing lease extension as soon as possible ahead of solar panels.

Alnat1

Pretty sure it will be a usual "up north" 999 year type lease but I might be proved wrong. 

As you don't have a mortgage, have you got any of the documents relating to the property? If not you can download a copy of the Lease from Land Registry, I think it's about £15.

Grumpy_chap

Alnat1 said:

Pretty sure it will be a usual "up north" 999 year type lease but I might be proved wrong. 

That could be a dangerous assumption.
999 year leases (virtual freehold) are a recent thing.
We have a 1972-built maisonette and the original lease term was 99 years, which was common for the time. 

Alnat1

Flats, apartments and maisonettes have communal areas and tend to have the shorter leases and higher ground rents to cover maintenance costs.

In my experience detached and semi-detached houses built between the 20s and early 90s in Yorks. and Lancs. tend to have the very long leases and low ground rents.