Purchasing a leasehold house (NW England) - alterations/ground rent

jackc12

Hi all,

We have an offer accepted on a semi-detached house in NW England. This is leasehold (as are quite a lot of the properties in our area). I have purchased the leasehold and freehold title entries and plans, and just have a few questions before we commit further. I know our conveyancer will look at this, but from previous experience they will be reluctant to offer advice until they receive the sellers pack later on. Hence we hopefully seek some reassurance here.

The lease title register:

- States the lease is from 1960, for 999 years at £9 rent. There is no mention of any mechanism to increase.

- There is no mention of any terms for modification/alteration of the house.

- There is an entry under A) property register: Unless otherwise mentioned the title includes any legal easements granted by the registered lease(s) but is subject to any rights that it reserves, so far as those easements and rights exist and benefit or affect the registered land.

- The remaining entries all relate to charges from banks/loan companies.

The freehold title register:

- Includes restriction on disposition of the registered estate due to a charge in favour of Rothesay Life PLC (and corresponding charges)

My questions are:

1. With no mention of ground rent increase in the lease title, does this make it certainly fixed at £9 for the duration?

2. With no mention of alteration/modification of the property, would there be no restriction as far as the freeholder is concerned? I.e. we would not need any freeholder permission for building work?

3. If we were to exercise our right to buy the freehold after 2 years in the house, would that superceed the restriction on the freehold title register, or would this be a problem?

Thanks in advance for any help, it would be much appreciated. We know our conveyancer will advise on this in due course, but we have already been burnt (and cancelled) in a previous attempted house purchase, and want to go in with realistic expectations.

Mark_d

1. Yes

2. Yes

3. Yes

eddddy

FWIW, if you waited 2 years and used the statutory process to buy the freehold...

• Under current legislation, the freehold might cost £130 to £150 - but you'd have to pay your costs and the freeholder's costs, which might total £2k or £3k

• New legislation in the pipeline (which is expected at the end of 2025) should mean you no longer have to pay the freeholder's costs - so that could knock £1k+ off your bill

But the freehold is fairly worthless to the freeholder, so the freeholder might offer you a deal which might work out cheaper - the cost of the freehold might be more, but the other costs might be much less.

If you do an informal deal like this, you don't have to wait 2 years.


(But given the terms of your lease, some people might say  - Why bother buying the freehold? What benefit does it give?... Are there any covenants in the lease that you want to be free of?)

jackc12

Thanks both - appreciate it.

There are no covenants we want to be free of, and I see no need to buy it in the short term at least.

But I know some people are very leasehold adverse, so for the purpose of onward sale value far down the line, I just wanted to be aware if the option to later purchase the lease is open. And yes I think that's a good point, we would certainly be best to wait for the reforms first.