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thinking about putting an offer on a house, but it's leasehold. Anybody bought a leasehold property ? has it all been plain sailing or have you had problems ? are they as easy to sell ? i'm waiting for solicitors to get back to me on length of leasehold and will probably apply to buy the freehold in the longterm, but would appreciate any warnings up front.
Have you checked with the mortgage lender? It can be more difficult to get mortgages for Leasehold.
It's pretty common in some areas of the country and generally there is no problem with it at all. Think my house has 887 years to run on the lease and I pay £1.50 ground rent a year (if collected, which it isn't).
Any idea of the age of the property? Gives a good idea on the lenght of the term. Our house is leasehold but for next to nothing known as 'peppercorn rent' it has a 999 yr lease (900yrs to go) at £1.50 a year.
It costs slightly more in legal fees due to some additional searches, plus the freeholder has to provide a signature which could hold things up slightly if they can't be found (didn't in our case)
I'm very tempted to to try to buy the freehold just to make selling easier, but given it's only £1.50 a year it;s not really worth it.
If its a more modern property I'd be wary of bying anything with much less than 70 years on it. Though I believe if you live there a certain length of time you have the right to buy the freehold?
Oh try to get a copy of the leasehold agreement even if its 100 years old (alot were lost in the war). Mine has some great exclusions - I'm not allowed to make bricks, brew spirits or have a fair ground on the land 🙂
Some have sneaky clauses, a friend fell foul of one, his said you need to gain freeholders permission to make any modifications to the property (like an extension) failure to get their permission means they can levy a % fine on selling the house.
no stigma attached to it where I live because it's common
also the council own the freehold so ground rent is really low and so is the service charge and whilst their response time on things is slow, they're very reasonable
just heard back from solicitors and its got 949 years left and its £8.00 per year, so hopefully the mortgage provider will be happy with that and i'll get my new house with its huge basement just waiting to be turned into workshop / bike storage / bolt hole 😀