Retrospective ground rent charge?

YorkshireSun

I'm the executor of a relative's will and am currently in the process of selling her flat.
This week, the freeholder has sent a billed for "ground rent uplift - arrears" for every year since 2018. 
From my relative's records, I can see that she paid her ground rent every year. So it seems that the freeholder is applying new ground rent charges retrospectively and they're requesting the difference be paid now.
Does anyone know if freeholders are legally allowed to increase ground rent charges retrospectively?

YorkshireSun

PS thanks in advance 

DE_612183

I would suspect it should be in the leasehold agreement the T&Cs of the changes to charges - have you spoken to any neighbours about communications about this?

saajan_12

Ground rent isn't a charge that the freeholder decides and needs to bill for. Its defined in the lease, and regardless of any billing, the ground rent per the lease must be paid. 

Read the lease - if that says an £x increase from a certain date, then the leaseholder should have been paying that, and as such it can be claimed now. Note that increase may be a fixed amount or based on some variable eg RPI. 

eddddy

saajan_12 said:

Ground rent isn't a charge that the freeholder decides and needs to bill for. Its defined in the lease, and regardless of any billing, the ground rent per the lease must be paid. 

Read the lease - if that says an £x increase from a certain date, then the leaseholder should have been paying that, and as such it can be claimed now. 

Just to clarify - ground rent is only payable if/when the landlord (freeholder) sends a formal written demand for it.

If the landlord (freeholder) hasn't sent a demand, it's not payable.

(Maybe you're thinking of a rentcharge, rather than ground rent)

YorkshireSun said:

I'm the executor of a relative's will and am currently in the process of selling her flat.
This week, the freeholder has sent a billed for "ground rent uplift - arrears" for every year since 2018. 
From my relative's records, I can see that she paid her ground rent every year. So it seems that the freeholder is applying new ground rent charges retrospectively and they're requesting the difference be paid now.
Does anyone know if freeholders are legally allowed to increase ground rent charges retrospectively?

The lease will specify what the ground rent is, or how it should be calculated. So check that the bill matches what the lease says.

Ground rent can be demanded for up to 6 years. It sounds like the freeholder knows that, which is why they're billing back to 2018.