Leasehold Vs Freehold

[denislawsbackheel]

My house is leasehold.
I repair the roof.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

So if you buy a leasehold house and the roof needs replacing, who pays for that?

Not quite as straightforward.

Roof is structural. So freeholder Unless there's a term that specifies it's responsibility of the leaseholder.

Maintenance are what service charges should go towards and probably costs more than getting it done yourself if the leasehold property is a house.

Leasehold flats and houses: responsibilities for repairs - Shelter England

Your freeholder usually arranges the repairs. But you might have to pay some or all of the costs through service charges.

england.shelter.org.uk

 

[Johnny Mars Bar]

I own a leasehold property.

It’s a pain in the arse, wish I hadn’t bothered.

 

[inbetween]

Not an expert but I don't see how the leasehold element is important.
Lots of new builds house are sold as leasehold properties. If you buy one, does that mean you would never have to pay for roof, pointing, gutters, landscaping etc

Freehold just sets out who owns the land, it doesn't set out who is responsible for the maintenance as that comes down to the contract. With flats there really should be some form of communal arrangement in the contract to pay for repairs collectively. The freeholder is still responsible for actually doing the repairs, the contract just sets out who pays, for big buildings the freeholder will likely put a management company in place to sort it all.

Unlike with flats the contracts of these new build leasehold houses made the leaseholder solely responsible for maintenance despite not being granted all the rights as a land owner. These contracts have since been deemed unfair and leaseholds on new houses have been banned.

Anybody who lives in one of these new leasehold houses should look into buying the freehold, there are calculators online that show how much it'll cost. Usually they will have 999 year leases so it'll cost less than £5k to buy the freehold. You can then shake off paying ground rent etc so buying the freehold sort of pays for itself after a while.

You can also escape stupid covenants such as the ground rent doubling every X number of years which affects the ability to sell. My mum has just bought a flat with 980 years remaining on the lease, the ground rent doubles from £250 every 25 years and only stops doubling once it reaches £4k per year! Thankfully she/we will be long gone by that point.

For those with houses with less than 100 years remaining I'd definitely consider buying the freehold now. Houses with less than 100 years remaining are extremely difficult to sell because from this point the freehold gets more expensive and a lease extension starts to become incredibly expensive, or you just risk losing the property to the freeholder.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

I have a 999 year lease.
The ground rent is £20 a year fixed forever.
I was offered the freehold for £1000.
Nah thanks.

 

[elbearos]

I thought flats were leasehold, and houses were freehold ?

 

[denislawsbackheel]

I thought flats were leasehold, and houses were freehold ?

Not necessarily.
In the NW and the Birmingham areas historically houses were leasehold with a minimal ground rent.

 

[inbetween]

I have a 999 year lease.
The ground rent is £20 a year fixed forever.
I was offered the freehold for £1000.
Nah thanks.

I would have considered that mate, especially if you plan to sell at any point.

They say that a freehold house adds around 2% onto a house's value so for say a £200k house you could be £3k up.

Buyers are often put off by leasehold and there are higher legal costs associated with dealing with the sale.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

Not in the NW.
It makes no difference where I live.

 

[Gremlin]

Not quite as straightforward.

Roof is structural. So freeholder Unless there's a term that specifies it's responsibility of the leaseholder.

Maintenance are what service charges should go towards and probably costs more than getting it done yourself if the leasehold property is a house.

Leasehold flats and houses: responsibilities for repairs - Shelter England

Your freeholder usually arranges the repairs. But you might have to pay some or all of the costs through service charges.

england.shelter.org.uk

Not if it's a house - that only applies to flats (where you have a lease on part of the building and are responsible for that bit, but the common parts and services to the entire building like the roof, hallways etc. are paid for by the freeholder and recovered through service charges.

If you live in a house (whether terraced, semi-detached or fully detached) then the leasehold is only for the land and everything sat on it (the bricks, mortar and, as in this case, the roof) is the leaseholders responsibility.

Hence leasehold fees can be eye-watering on some flats (and the subject of some recent campaigns as cladding replacement costs, for example, are being passed through to the leaseholders), but leasehold fees on houses are usually fairly small.