Leasehold house - advice?

My new house is leasehold at a cost of £90 year and with 125 years left to run. There's a maintenance charge of £80/year as well.

My only experience is of freehold properties and I was wondering if anyone has any advice. Particularly, whether being leasehold might affect the saleability of the house, whether I could buy the freehold and how much this is likely to cost, whether I could be ripped off by anyone, whether the charges might increase etc.

It's one of the new build houses off Park Grange Road on Norfolk Park.

Thoughts/advice appreciated - thanks.

Ours is leasehold. It made us stop and think, but we liked the house and bought it anyway.

I'll be interested to read any info anybody else has

I currently live in a leasehold property that has about 800 years lease left, and that isn't a misspelling!!

Not cheap though.... £4 a year!

Originally posted by Briano

I currently live in a leasehold property that has about 800 years lease left, and that isn't a misspelling!!

 

Not cheap though.... £4 a year!

me too - 700 yrs - £10

Sounds like i'm already paying over the odds!

No. Thier house will be older. The groundrent is set when it's built, so it devalues.

It sounds like you have to pay for upkeep of something though, so yours may change

Originally posted by mrinvestigat

My new house is leasehold at a cost of £90 year and with 125 years left to run. There's a maintenance charge of £80/year as well.

 

My only experience is of freehold properties and I was wondering if anyone has any advice. Particularly, whether being leasehold might affect the saleability of the house, whether I could buy the freehold and how much this is likely to cost, whether I could be ripped off by anyone, whether the charges might increase etc.

 

It's one of the new build houses off Park Grange Road on Norfolk Park.

 

Thoughts/advice appreciated - thanks.

Like most others here my lease is 700+ years and the ground rent is so small its never charged. I our case i assume its just to ensure taht other houses which share access through our garden may continue to do so, and also that any maintainabnce costs of shared areas are met by all leaseholders... although i've never checked.

because yours is shorter (and costlier) it would be a good idea to enquire about a lease extention or buying the lease out completely as leases of under 100 years and especially under about 70 years can affect buyer confidence. likely wouldn't be too expensive to buy the lease out and might be worth considering depending on how long you intend to stay at the property

leasehold on houses that are much older tend to be much cheaper. I think Sheffield has a lot more leasehold properties than other cities, it's just one of those things. Often as leases come towards an end the leasholder will extend the lease for say another 100 years or so....but I think this is also seen as an opportune time for them to increase the ground rent.

For a new property a leashold charge of £90 per year isn't too bad. If you'd like to purchase the freehold interest you'd need to contact the leaseholder and ask if they are prepared to sell their interest to you. If they are in agreement to sell you'll also need to use a solicitor. I looked into doing something similar a few years ago and it was going to cost me around £2,000 so I didn't bother, especially given that my ground rent was only £4 a year.

One thing to bear in mind is that leases often come with restrictive covenants attached, so if you buy the lease to make it "freehold" the leaseholder may still maintain the restrictive covenants. Again for a fee some leaseholders will release some covenants, but this is probably less likely for new build properties given that the covenants have only recently been established and probably are there to protect neighbouring properties on the development...

To me leases are a bit of a grey area, say if there was a lease on the ground where your property is built for say 100 years, at the end of the 100 years what happens if the landlord decides not to extend the lease, and more interesting, what happens to your house? This sounds preposterous, but could the leaseholder insist it is demolished as he wants his land back???

I believe that there is a law which gives you the right to buy the freehold whether the landlord wants to sell or not. I think you have to have owned the house for several years first.

I don't think people are worried about shorter leases like yours - they are very common with new builds.

Also, as leases come near to the end, say 30/40 years left then you have the right to buy them or extend anyway and the cost is capped I understand.

you should speak to the council about the maintenance fee, certian properties in waterthorpe area had a similar fee attached which was meant to cover council services such asgrass cutting.the landlord never has to sell you the lease but he may do he could alo however sell it to someone else at any given time.as far as i am aware it doesn't give them any rights or in deed prevent you from doing anything to your home.

Have you tried reading your Lease?

Originally posted by davecontact

Have you tried reading your Lease?

Not yet as the purchase is currently going through so I don't have a copy of it yet.