OH MY, The Most Stunning Beautiful Property

penguine

The property looks fantastic to me. We live in a 2 bed flat in Zone 5 (above shops, but not smelly ones) which is worth about £180-190K and is no where near this nice. So the price on this property sounds almost too good to be true. It's possible that it's this cheap because you're going to have to pay a largish sum to extend the lease. Is your lender requiring a lease extension in order to give you a mortgage? Ours did but I can't remember what the length of the lease was when we bought it.

In my experience the worst problem with leasehold is if your freeholder stops doing maintenance, or disappears off the planet (not even charging ground rent anymore) which is what happened to us. At one point he was going to build flats on top of our roof as an investment -- I wish he would have done it, at least he'd have had to do some maintenance to the rest of the building then.

Captain_Mainwaring_2

simpywimpy wrote: »

www.landregistry.gov.uk will give you the name and contact details of the owner of the land I think.

Majority of properties are leasehold. In fact, I've never had a house that has been freehold to be honest. Ive just extended mine - twice without contacting them. I don't think they care unless you don't pay the ground rent. Mine is peanuts.

Good luck with your purchase though. You should just go with your heart.

BINDUN.


Rubbish

Extended twice? What are you cr4ping on about?

Yes, good luck with the purchase.

matt99b

penguine wrote: »

In my experience the worst problem with leasehold is if your freeholder stops doing maintenance, or disappears off the planet (not even charging ground rent anymore) which is what happened to us. At one point he was going to build flats on top of our roof as an investment -- I wish he would have done it, at least he'd have had to do some maintenance to the rest of the building then.

There aren't really any public areas for maintenance here- only the public driveway round the back... but I'll check into that.

WOW- Can the land owner really build more flats ontop of the roof of your flat without your permission?

matt99b

just managed to get the title deed/land registry... its in jibberish!

"AND IT IS HEREBY AGREED AND DECLARED that the Vendors shall be at
liberty to build on either side of the land hereby transferred
notwithstanding any interference thereby occasioned to the access of
light and air to the said land and the Purchasers shall be at liberty
to build on the said land notwithstanding any interference thereby
occasioned to the access of light and air to the land and buildings on
either side."

Phew!

How is it possible to build without interference to the access of light and air anyway?!

I'm guessing this means we can't put a fence in to separate the back passage to the passage to the flat's front door. Life in London is so complicated.

We will find a solicitor to read them for us, but it looks like the freeholder only owns the plot of land beneath the flat + shop (not the whole row of shops), and is (possibly) the same couple who leases the shop.

clobber_2

I'm sorry, I've been away.


DID SOMEBODY MENTION DECKING????

Captain_Mainwaring_2

matt99b wrote: »

just managed to get the title deed/land registry... its in jibberish!

"AND IT IS HEREBY AGREED AND DECLARED that the Vendors shall be at
liberty to build on either side of the land hereby transferred
notwithstanding any interference thereby occasioned to the access of
light and air to the said land and the Purchasers shall be at liberty
to build on the said land notwithstanding any interference thereby
occasioned to the access of light and air to the land and buildings on
either side."

Phew!

How is it possible to build without interference to the access of light and air anyway?!

I'm guessing this means we can't put a fence in to separate the back passage to the passage to the flat's front door. Life in London is so complicated.

We will find a solicitor to read them for us, but it looks like the freeholder only owns the plot of land beneath the flat + shop (not the whole row of shops), and is (possibly) the same couple who leases the shop.

It's not jibberish and it's not a bad lease by all accounts, what it does imply is that the freeholder still owns land on either side of your flat. It also gives you the right to build on the land shown in the transfer.

Re the fence, you need to look at the plan which you should also have downloaded and see where your red bit extends to. You may well be at liberty to put up a fence so long as it doesn't affect anyones right of passage across the land (easement) or access to any other property.

In any case I'd be very careful about interfering with anyone's back passage.

angel81uk

I haven't read the entire thread, but I for one would love to know where the property is! 2 years ago we bought a leasehold 1 bed flat with parking but no outside space in zone 4 for £205k in a safe, clean area with good transport links and lots of green space. Ok so it's not above a shop which I'm sure affects the price and we're surrounded by woodlands and parks etc. But even now we can't find anything in a similar price range with more than 1 bed in what we would consider a reasonable location.

Captain_Mainwaring_2

pragueproperty wrote: »

Don't really know how these lease things work. overseas properties

Then better you don't comment.

As for living in the Czech republic, I can be sufficiently miserable living in the UK without having to waste the airfair.

penguine

matt99b wrote: »

WOW- Can the land owner really build more flats ontop of the roof of your flat without your permission?

Yes -- they just need to get planning permission. It's been happening up and down our high street for the past few years -- as it's a good way for the freeholder to make more money. But I don't think it would be feasible in the property you're looking at.

The roof and the structure of the building should be your landlord's responsibility to repair (though you have to pay a proportion of the costs). So it might be worth asking when the roof was last repaired / replaced and what condition it's in now.

Our lease has a few funny conditions, including that we're supposed to keep our floors carpeted -- no doubt to prevent too much noise from carrying down to the flats below -- but the owner of the flat above us has put down laminate anyway. The lease is a bit daunting to read (and interpret) but overall there is nothing in it which has kept us from making any improvements we want to our flat.

Snaggles

Captain_Mainwaring wrote: »

In any case I'd be very careful about interfering with anyone's back passage.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: