OH MY, The Most Stunning Beautiful Property

neverdespairgirl

Kavanne wrote: »

I live in Southampton, that explains that then

(And PS Lucky you!!!)

We rent it, costs £1k per month, incl water bills, so we're on to a good thing!

Kavanne

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

We rent it, costs £1k per month, incl water bills, so we're on to a good thing!

That sounds very reasonable!!

Pumpkin_Pie_5

So anyhoo back to the plot.......:rolleyes:

One advantage of Shared freehold over leasehold is that you are less likely to get unwanted additions to your flats - In the case of my dads flat, the managing agents wanted to add additional floors to a 1930s buildig and stick mobile phone masts on the top. This is what sparked the residents association to put in a bid for the freehold. We sold before it was finished and the lawyer did say it added some value to the flat so it might be worth investigating to see if they are willing to sell.

Up here we have a freehold with a some kind of ground rent too which I never really got to grips with.. A lot of the house here are leasehold anyway. You get used to it - As long as the lease is long enough or easily extendable I fail to see the problem?

As an aside in France you own a proportion of the land according to your square metrage but you don't own your balcony - You just have "sole use of".

neverdespairgirl

Kavanne wrote: »

That sounds very reasonable!!

It is - and we can both walk to work, which saves a few quid (-:

SouthCoast

I suspect that OP will find it very difficult to get a mortgage for a property above commercial premises.

clutton_2

OP seems to have vanished ....

matt99b

Thanks for all the advice everyyone, it's been quite helpful!

And to captain and few others in minority trolling this thread, please leave, I don't expect to read words like pu55y on a board like this and I'm not going to respond further to your comments.

We went to see the flat from the outside and area today again, and think we're going to consider putting an offer in.

By the way ground rent and nominal charges we've been told are about £50 a month.

Are offers bound- or can we pull out any time if we learn something new?

Does anyone have any advice on what we should do for an offer? Here is what we have so far:

- If you accept our offer it is on the condition that the property be taken off the market
- our offer includes the SOF (OR our offer includes a full lease extension)

The asking price is "offers in the region of 170,000" - if anyone has any ideas what would make a sensible offer including the above, that would be appreciated

One thing that does still puzzle us about leaseholds. If you can purchase a lease extension before the property gets below 70 years for almost free, then why do some people let their leases run down to zero? Considering the low cost of lease extensions, surely everyone would have just purchased extensions so that the property value doesn't go down? I know of a property that got down to 2 years on the lease, and the leaseholder is desparately trying to sell for less than 30% the property's normal value. And I know of a few others too. If it's so easy to get a lease extension then why don't/didn't they do it?

thanks for all the help everyone

matt99b

SouthCoast wrote: »

I suspect that OP will find it very difficult to get a mortgage for a property above commercial premises.

We're aware of this pitfall (for any other newbies- mortgage lenders often need a higher deposit for flats above commercial premises)

We're actually mortgage arranged for it but thanks for the warning

matt99b

Another slight worry of ours , is that there is a fish + chip shop below the next door neighbour's property. A bit concerned about smell + also about fire insurance , or fire risks etc. Although we can't seem to smell anything everytmie we've visited it so far.

We're keeping an eye on that as we don't want a smell constantly. But it seems to be fine so far. 3rd visit tomorrow so we will see. Knowing sods law it's fine now but will smell bad the day we move in!

If only there was plenty of choice, I think we'd go for something else. We've looked at a lot of properties but just fallen in love with this internally. It's quite old and quirky.

matt99b

Another worry of ours is whether we should wait a few years for prices to drop further-

Does anyone have any advice regarding whether to buy now or wait? We know property prices are falling and this is a buyers market. We're renting so in no rush to buy. We just fell in love with this one- thats all!

The agent thinks now is a perfect time to buy as prices won't get much lower. But of course he'd say that. Advice appreciated!