leasehold to freehold

[johnny37]

If you own a flat on a 999 year lease with as ground rent of �1 per year, what would be the benefit, if any, of buying the freehold for �1, bearing in mind the length of the lease? Im on the ground floor. Could the freeholder cause probs or renegotiate the ground rent if I want to extend?

[Shadow Man]

The benefits will lay in the maintenance charges. By the law the freeholder has to obtain at least three quotes for any maintainence charges (gardening, cleaning, repair etc). However, the law does not state that the freeholder has to use the cheapest one.

Therefore there are quite legal backhanders and favouritism in the industry. That is why many thousand of leaseholders pay a gardener 3 thousand pounds a yeear for a tri-yearly mow, or �2000 intercom repair bills when all that was done was a quick hoover of the electric points.

[loonytunes]

Your flat is leasehold for a very good reason. A freehold flat is very bad news legally and may affect your ability to sell and any buyer would be unlikely to get a mortgage on it. This is because, under English law, you cannot impose any covenants on a property which does not stand on the ground. So if one property is on top of another, you can only impose maintenance requirements on each other by creating a lease. The flat above depends on you to maintain yours and you are dependent upon them to maintain theirs, otherwise it all falls down.