Buying lease on my house.

paddythebaddy

Wanting to buy lease on house. Built approx early seventies. Bought 1985 paying £15 yearly ground rent. Company have stated £7k plus legal fees.
Any tips ?

RHemmings

paddythebaddy said:

Wanting to buy lease on house. Built approx early seventies. Bought 1985 paying £15 yearly ground rent. Company have stated £7k plus legal fees.
Any tips ?

It would help to know how long is left on the lease. It sounds to me that the £15 is a fixed ground rent, but are there any clauses for its increase?

eddddy

paddythebaddy said:

Wanting to buy lease on house. Built approx early seventies. Bought 1985 paying £15 yearly ground rent. Company have stated £7k plus legal fees.
Any tips ?

I suspect you mean you want to buy the freehold.

You probably already own the lease - i.e. you own a leasehold house.

There are 2 ways of buying the freehold of your house...

• 1) The statutory route (officially called 'statutory enfranchisement')

• 2) The informal route

It sounds like the freeholder has made you an (initial) offer to sell you the freehold for £7k - so that would be the informal route.

Maybe it would be useful to know how much the freehold would cost by following the statutory route - it might be much cheaper. But a valuer might charge, say, £500 to give you an estimate of that.

The cost following the statutory route would depend on the ground rent, the amount of lease remaining, and the value of the house.


If you get an estimate from a valuer, if you want, you can use that info to make a counter-offer to your freeholder, or you can start the statutory route, or you can accept the freeholder's current offer to sell the freehold for £7k.