999 year lease on a house!!

What is the point of a 999 year lease?

Why not just make the property freehold?

Also, they say you should extend a normal 99 year lease when 80 years are left, otherwise it becomes very expensive to extend. When should you extend a 999 year lease before it becomes very expensive?

I believe you have to obtain permission from the leaseholder as well as the Council if you want to make changes to the house. With all the problem with new leasehold houses rapidly ramping up the leasehold charge I think it might be difficult to sell leasehold properties in future.

After the lease expires the property ownership reverts back to the leaseholder.

I would buy the lease if you have chance glitterballs.

Here it is on Government website:

https://www.gov.uk/leasehold-property

It still surprises me that company’s buy these leases with such a long time remaining and at such a small ground rent.

Mine is quite a lot at £6.50 (other houses have been £2 ish but it was left to one resident in a run to collect maybe 4-6 houses and pass on to the leaseholder)but it cant really be worthwhile for the leaseholder to collect that small sum they send an invoice and reminder generally

Surely in a few more decades collecting £6.50 wont be worthwhile and another 845 years to go

Glitterballs, you must have the details of who you pay. Try your solicitor or citizens advice if the link doesn’t help.

Ian Parkin most I know pay a three figure sum per year. Some of the new builds are doubling every ten years. Google it

Inflation has made a lot of the old freeholds worthless, but a hundred or so years ago when most of them in this area were drawn-up, a row of houses could provide a decent income.

Generally speaking under the 1967 act you have the right to purchase the freehold provided you have owned the property for at least two years. Best to take advice on this as you will have the landlords incurred costs plus your own fees to find. The actual cost of the freehold will not be much.

Don't confuse the old 999, years leases with modern freeholds which, like much in modern England are a racket with ten yearly increases and consents etc.

Mine's leasehold, built in 1954 with a lease of 899 - rather than 999 - years effective from 1939; evidence here of delayed construction due to WW2 & I understand a shortage of construction labour & materials for some time thereafter.

The ground rent is fixed for the term of the lease at £8.00 per annum & the company acting on behalf of the landlord have recently started to try & pressure leaseholders into paying for 10 years' ground rent up front (£80.00) which will of course reduce their admin fees. There's no legal basis for this & - as no discount's offered for what amounts to early payment - I shall continue to pay £8.00 per annum. I understand that a number of my neighbours have ignored the annual invoices for £8.00 for a number of years now & these debts haven't been pursued - presumably due to their low value.

Given the length of the lease & the fixed nature of the ground rent (with extremely low cost at today's value) it doesn't seem to be worth me buying the freehold?

Chez2

we were talking about old leaseholds not the new ones which i'm well aware of

new ones are never 1000 year leases

Glitterballs, you must have the details of who you pay. Try your solicitor or citizens advice if the link doesn’t help.

 

Ian Parkin most I know pay a three figure sum per year. Some of the new builds are doubling every ten years. Google it

That's very different to a typical Sheffield lease from 50 or a 100 years ago though.

The majority of walkley is on 999 year leases, my previous house had 890 left or something, at a cost of £2.50 a year.

There was no clause to increase it, so it was going to be at < than the pint of beer for another 800 years. And probably < loaf of bread inside the next 50, then < than a penny sweet within a couple of hundred.

Mine's leasehold, built in 1954 with a lease of 899 - rather than 999 - years effective from 1939; evidence here of delayed construction due to WW2 & I understand a shortage of construction labour & materials for some time thereafter.

 

The ground rent is fixed for the term of the lease at £8.00 per annum & the company acting on behalf of the landlord have recently started to try & pressure leaseholders into paying for 10 years' ground rent up front (£80.00) which will of course reduce their admin fees. There's no legal basis for this & - as no discount's offered for what amounts to early payment - I shall continue to pay £8.00 per annum. I understand that a number of my neighbours have ignored the annual invoices for £8.00 for a number of years now & these debts haven't been pursued - presumably due to their low value.

 

Given the length of the lease & the fixed nature of the ground rent (with extremely low cost at today's value) it doesn't seem to be worth me buying the freehold?

I believe you are only liable for six years arrears (as with most other debt) anything older is a dead debt.

Thanks for that Chez2, how would I find who owns the lease as on the papers I have the names and addresses are from years ago?

You can try searching the Land Registry to see who owns the property and how much the charge is. It costs about £3 to download the details, hope that helps!

https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-property-and-land/search-the-register

Glitterballs, you must have the details of who you pay. Try your solicitor or citizens advice if the link doesn’t help.

 

Ian Parkin most I know pay a three figure sum per year. Some of the new builds are doubling every ten years. Google it

I have in mind there is a way to do this without having details of who owns the lease.

I believe you have to obtain permission from the leaseholder** as well as the Council if you want to make changes to the house. With all the problem with new leasehold houses rapidly ramping up the leasehold charge I think it might be difficult to sell leasehold properties in future.

 

After the lease expires the property ownership reverts back to the leaseholder**

** No. OP is the leaseholder, for which role legislation and HMLR use the word 'tenant'.

You intended to refer to the freehold reversioner, for which role legislation and HMLR use the word 'landlord'.

---------- Post added 01-02-2018 at 17:22 ----------

No, none and my solicitor couldn't find anything when I bought the house.

That might have been because the freehold reversion was unregistered at the time.