OH MY, The Most Stunning Beautiful Property

matt99b

So myself and my partner have been looking to buy our first property for well over two years. I finally got a good job with an excellent salary. We work in central london so need something commutable. Freehold is a must for us. As its our first property together we want something a bit special... something quirky, unusual, bit of character, thats quiet and feels like its away from london, like to hear birds, see greenery etc, like countryside. We're a bit old-school like that. As I run a home business, we would like at least 3 bedrooms. Nothing too much to ask. Just looking for something decent really, with a bit of quirk to it. I would say thats nothing too much to ask to be honest.

So... looked.. and looked.. and all that turned up was freehold properties that were too far away from london in nice areas, but just too far to commute, or freehold properties that are very nice in areas where you'd expect to get stabbed or shot at as you walk out of your front door. Not ideal. We saw one property in a steet full of broken down dirty nasty council houses, and then in the middle was our property for sale, beautiful shining standing out like a sore thumb, everything was brand new, repainted, re-bricked, brand new re-furbished inside it was like a perfect target for the street thugs! Not good. Area is very important to us.

So, finally one day as we were losing hope, we stumble across a BEAUTIFUL, STUNNING maisonette above a shop, with beams. Lovely beautiful safe area in the countryside. OH MY, we fell in love, we have had tingles going down our backs since we saw it yesterday. It is only £169k. We are about to put an offer in on it. It has all original features, two real fireplaces, real wooden floorboards dark wood, gorgeous, quirky, 3 bedrooms, nice big lounge, little study, a roof. Ok it's above a newsagents but we can't have everything, and it was so lovely we don't care about that- it has private gated entrance, separate detached garage and workshop, that we would convert into a separate one bedroom detached flat and rent it out to increase our income. Great! It has a roof terrace, another terrace next to the garage, quirky little steps leading up to the property, nice and quiet, private location that feels like it's away from London in the countryside- yet only 20 mins by train to London Bridge!

FINALLY, we feel like the weight of the world is off our shoulders, we're starting to make it and feel relieved and happy for the first time in years. The end is in sight. No more renting. No more b*st*rd landlords. No more living in central london and its noise. No more living apart and visiting each other. No more housemates, no more rent. And finally we can actually OWN something. Something that is ours and only ours, to do with as we please. No answering to anyone.

We got out deposit together, sold a few things here and there. I called the agent today to put in our offer of the asking price this morning. It turns out the estate agent neglected to mention...




.... that the property is ....




... LEASEHOLD!!!!!!!!! ...




....It has 76 years left on the lease...




What a dissappointment. What a load of b*ll.

Of course the agents try to persuade us that leasehold is the same as freehold and that we won't be losing anything. But this means we would still have a landlord, and we wouldn't officially own the poperty. We would have to ask permission to do anything. We would have to fork out a huge fee to extend the lease so that the property doesn't reduce in value. It adds complication. It makes me angry. After all this time we found something we liked, and it's got this b*llsh*t associated with it. Its basically not that different to renting in the first place. Only you pay more for it.

Why would anyone want to lease a property and pay the same amount that you would to own a freehold. You have a stupid landlord and you still have to ask permission to do anything and it doesn't actually *feel* like you finally own something that is wholeheartedly and completely yours. This is one of the most important things to us for our home.

What a load of b*ll.

All Leaseholds are immoral and should be abolished.

I'm sorry, I'm venting, but as you can see, we've been through a lot, and this is the first property we felt we could actually buy.

Back to square one. I think we've just about given up now. We're not going to top this property. We've just about given up hope, all out of energy. That's us. Done.

Captain_Mainwaring_2

Don't talk utter rubbish. There are millions of leases that work quite well, half of London is leased.

You'll have to be more realistic in your desires as a first time buyer.

A classic case of champagne tastes and beer money.

clutton_2

calm down and think rationally about this - how CAN you own the maisonette - there is another property (the shop underneath you) and the land that both stand on .......

before you give up entirely why not ask the current owner if you can buy the freehold off him ?

btw - getting a mortgage on a property above a shop can be very difficult - what sort of shop is it ? it could be changed into a take-away - noise, smell, litter - how would you feel then ? you also cannot just assume you will get planning to convert storage into residential .....

phil_b_2

If its too good to be true it usually is. A stunning good sized property in a very nice area within short commuting distance to London for £169k???????

I would be too concerned about the shop (and what may become of it) beneath me to buy the property, even if it were freehold (I think).

Captain_Mainwaring_2

Difficult to mortgage possibly dependant on the way the title was originally developed.

And you'd need to know about change of use, you could end up living over a funeral directors.
Happened to someone I knew, they said the vapour from the embalming fluid made their pu55y go funny.

BARGAINHUNTER!

I thought the vast majority of flats were leasehold, as if there is someone below you how can you own the ground the flat sits on? You will need to make enquiries regarding extending the lease - it might not be as expensive as you thought. I don't know what happens if you buy a property with a short leasehold and don't extend it though. At the end of the lease can the landlord turf you out? Sorry, don't really know how these lease things work! Im sure the price of the flat reflects the fact that the lease needs extending. You need to find out what the lease will cost to extend and add this to the original purchase price of the flat to work out if this flat is worth going for. Makes you wonder why the sellers didn't get the lease extended themselves though and add the cost of the extention to the price asked. Would have made it easier to sell I would have thought!

matt99b

Captain_Mainwaring wrote: »

Don't talk utter rubbish. There are millions of leases that work quite well, half of London is leased.

You'll have to be more realistic in your desires as a first time buyer.

A classic case of champagne tastes and beer money.

Not talking rubbish- everything I said was true. Half of London is leased, correct. But this doesn't make it right.

Apparently we are being realistic. Otherwise we wouldn't have found this property we love.

I wouldn't call £170k beer money, but I would say property prices are 5 times too high for intrinsic value. And I wouldn't call living above a shop champagne tastes.

Sorry to contradict you Captain Mainwaring but you're wrong.

matt99b

clutton wrote: »

calm down and think rationally about this - how CAN you own the maisonette - there is another property (the shop underneath you) and the land that both stand on .......

before you give up entirely why not ask the current owner if you can buy the freehold off him ?

btw - getting a mortgage on a property above a shop can be very difficult - what sort of shop is it ? it could be changed into a take-away - noise, smell, litter - how would you feel then ? you also cannot just assume you will get planning to convert storage into residential .....

I am thinking rationally. You can own a share of freehold. That's how.

I have already asked this question. The estate agents doesn't know the owner, and has said it will probably involve asking the entire line of houses to request the freehold, around 50 flats. But they don't know and don't seem willing to find out who the owner is or anything at all for us about the place. We don't know what else to do. The estate agent is our only point of contact, obviously.

It's a newsagent and smell/litter is fine. Non existant actually. We don't generally ask why the previous owner is selling, as if its for a bad reason, you never get the truth out of them anyway; they are trying to sell after all. We can't detect anything wrong with litter or smell or anything like that. We have asked around and it's really quite ideallic, in a nice area, no smells or anything like that apparently. Obviously you can only go by what you see before you buy and what you hear.

We know that we might not get planning permission for converting the garage into a flat. We are of course, aware of this. It was just an idea. You can find this out by spending time applying for permission etc.

With regards to the mortgage; previous buyers have fallen through because they couldn't get a mortage with anything less than 10% deposit, as its above a shop. We have our 15% deposit at the ready and mortgage arranged especially for this one. So, mortgage is already something we've thought about and is fine.

Shame about the leasehold-ness as there's no way we're going to pay for that rubbish. It wouldn't be our own flat.

Thanks

matt99b

phil_b wrote: »

If its too good to be true it usually is. A stunning good sized property in a very nice area within short commuting distance to London for £169k???????

I would be too concerned about the shop (and what may become of it) beneath me to buy the property, even if it were freehold (I think).

Yes the shop is a downside, as is the back entrance, but this is probably why the price is so low. You can't have everything, and this is our budget. Considering everything, that doesn't bother us too much.

But with this turning out to be leasehold- forget it.

Doozergirl

It was always going to be leasehold if it was above something else. Share of freehold still involves leases.

The average estate agent knows very little about leasehold properties. This one certainly appears to know very little if they think the whole row needs to be involved, especially if you are self contained. You need to find the freehold title to your maisonette (costs £3) to check but I should think it's just you and the newsagent.

If you are interested then you should pursue through your solicitor once you get a sensible offer accepted. If you were offering asking price for a freehold property then I should think that the offer could be revised to include a lease extension if not SOF.

Purchasing freeholds might be more expensive if there is commercial property involved as the leases on these tend to be shorter and the freehold value higher.

You just have to do your homework. It may be that the lease is self managing (shops often have self repairing leases) and if it's just you and them, it mightn't be worth them employing a managing agent at all.

In fact, Does this property have a HIP? It would actually be invaluble in this case - save you spending money on a dead end.

If it's that great, you will find a way to do it. Or at least spend a bit of time doing some homework.

matt99b

BARGAINHUNTER! wrote: »

I thought the vast majority of flats were leasehold, as if there is someone below you how can you own the ground the flat sits on? You will need to make enquiries regarding extending the lease - it might not be as expensive as you thought. I don't know what happens if you buy a property with a short leasehold and don't extend it though. At the end of the lease can the landlord turf you out? Sorry, don't really know how these lease things work! Im sure the price of the flat reflects the fact that the lease needs extending. You need to find out what the lease will cost to extend and add this to the original purchase price of the flat to work out if this flat is worth going for. Makes you wonder why the sellers didn't get the lease extended themselves though and add the cost of the extention to the price asked. Would have made it easier to sell I would have thought!

We don't want to own the grounds the flat sits on. We do want to own the flat and have control over it. With leasehold we would have to ask for permission to do anything. We don't want to answer to anyone about our own property thank you very much!

The sellers may not have thought about the garage conversion; maybe they want to move somewhere bigger; maybe they couldn't afford it, who knows ; who cares. This has all been taken into consideration but ultimately doesn't affect our love of the flat. This thread isn't about that. This is about the leasehold.

The lease apparently they can only estimate it might cost around £8000 to extend by 90 years. Apparently to get a real quote will cost a lot of money. That's what the agents told us. But we don't want to do that! I don't understand why anyone would want to lease a property.