EA says Freehold, but Land Registry says Leasehold?

Maffy52

Hello, interested in a house which the EA says is freehold,
but Land Registry (LR) lists as Leasehold.

The EA told me the owner has bought the freehold.
So why does it still show as leasehold on LR? [Similar houses on the same street are listed
on LR as a 'mix' of some freehold and some leasehold?]

user1977

Most likely because the owner owns both the freehold and the leasehold. No particular need for them to end the lease.

eddddy

If the house was previously leasehold, but the seller has since bought the freehold...

By default the seller will own 2 titles - the leasehold title and the freehold title.  And both titles would be registered with Land Registry. (But if the seller only bought the freehold recently, it might not be showing yet.)

So presumably, the seller is selling you both titles - leasehold and freehold.  And you can choose to ask your solicitor merge them if you wish - so you just end up with a single freehold title.

Maffy52

user1977 said:

Most likely because the owner owns both the freehold and the leasehold. No particular need for them to end the lease.

>> would it show both on LR, or just the first one registered with LR (i.e. leasehold)

Maffy52

eddddy said:

If the house was previously leasehold, but the seller has since bought the freehold...

By default the seller will own 2 titles - the leasehold title and the freehold title.  And both titles would be registered with Land Registry. (But if the seller only bought the freehold recently, it might not be showing yet.)

So presumably, the seller is selling you both titles - leasehold and freehold.  And you can choose to ask your solicitor merge them if you wish - so you just end up with a single freehold title.

Thanks. The owner state they purchased the freehold in 2020. Could the owner sell the freehold but retain the leasehold? Does this make sense???

DullGreyGuy

Maffy52 said:

user1977 said:

Most likely because the owner owns both the freehold and the leasehold. No particular need for them to end the lease.

>> would it show both on LR, or just the first one registered with LR (i.e. leasehold)

You would see both

Maffy52 said:

eddddy said:

If the house was previously leasehold, but the seller has since bought the freehold...

By default the seller will own 2 titles - the leasehold title and the freehold title.  And both titles would be registered with Land Registry. (But if the seller only bought the freehold recently, it might not be showing yet.)

So presumably, the seller is selling you both titles - leasehold and freehold.  And you can choose to ask your solicitor merge them if you wish - so you just end up with a single freehold title.

Thanks. The owner state they purchased the freehold in 2020. Could the owner sell the freehold but retain the leasehold? Does this make sense???

Yes it's possible to sell the freehold and retain a leasehold but the value would reflect that based on the ground rent and duration remaining on the lease. Given they're the freeholder they'd have sensibly reduced the ground rent to nil/peppercorn and extended the lease so the freehold would be worth next to nothing

eddddy

Maffy52 said:

Thanks. The owner state they purchased the freehold in 2020. Could the owner sell the freehold but retain the leasehold? Does this make sense???

I'm not sure what you've understood and/or misunderstood - so apologies if I'm stating the obvious


So just to clarify, let's say the lease has 90 years left to run, typically...

• That means the owner of the leasehold can use the property (i.e. live in it) for the next 90 years.

• And the owner of the freehold would get the use of the property in 90 years time. (But the leaseholder might extend the lease before then)

So an investor might buy the freehold. But it would be no use to somebody who wanted to live in the property now.


So as an example, the leasehold of a house might be worth £250k and the freehold of that house might be worth £10k

HHarry

Raise it with your Conveyancer and get them to sort it out.

Our last purchase had some sort of equity release / lifetime mortgage on it, so the people living in it had a lifetime lease, and the company that had bought it in the ‘90’s owned the freehold.  We bought both and combined them.