"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
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On Tue, 07 Jun 2016 11:45:46 +0100, tim... wrote:

"whisky-dave" wrote in message
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On Monday, 6 June 2016 20:33:07 UTC+1, tim... wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
web.com...
On 06/06/2016 12:44, tim... wrote:

"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 06/06/2016 09:21, Jethro_uk wrote:
On Sun, 05 Jun 2016 22:55:33 +0100, RJH wrote:

On 05/06/2016 14:06, R D S wrote:
Has anyone bought their freehold?

My shop is leasehold, I pay 57p every 6 months and the bill
always includes a letter reminding me that if I want to break
wind, I need to ask them first and enclose a cheque for £120
for which they will check the lease and advise whether I am
permitted to do so.

So i'd like to buy the lease at least on the shop. Has anyone
done this and if so how was the process and what did it cost?

Value approx 70k, 850 yrs remaining on the lease.


ISTR that, for my house (similarly low rent and long lease), the
owner of the freehold wanted £500 plus the legal costs.

One of the snags is that the purchaser has to pay the
freeloaders^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hholders legall costs too. SO
irrespective of the value of the freehold, there's a baseline of
c. £2k.

I get where the OP is coming from. We bought a leasehold house,
and one of the covenants dictated which insurer we used. We could
use a different one, but the lease insisted it be approved by the
freeholder. AT *our*
expense (£60). Which meant we paid over the odds for insurance
for 10 years.

I also sympathise with the OP trying to get good advice - they
will find (as has already happened) any mention of freehold
purchase will be assumed to refer to flats.

We were trying to buy our freehold from the day we moved in. The
roadblock we hit was calculating what it was *worth*. If you want
to go down the proper route, it involves you - and the freeholder
- arguing over what a surveyor says the property is worth as a
starting point.
(Guess who pays for the freeholders surveyor ????!!!!). So you
are looking at having to spend some cash upfront.

This leaves a gap in the market for a class of "freehold
consultants"
who offer to handle the negotiations for you. We were contacted
by one who claimed to be "in the area". Unfortunately the fact
*he* came to *us*
meant he could never pass the smell test, and we never used him,
despite his helpfully reminding us of his existence.

Then one day - out of the blue - the doorbell rings. It was the
freeholder asking if we were interested in buying the freehold.
We chatted and a sum was agreed which seemed about right, so we
got a solicitor and bought it. SWMBO had previously spoken with
him on the phone, and I have to say he was as sleazy in person as
she had described him.

I also will never shake the feeling the freehold consultant and
freeholder were in collusion. Given the tortuous and opaque
nature of the process, it's easy to envisage a scheme whereby
chummy boy pretends to "negotiate" with the freeholder and get
the grateful homeowner to cough up over the odds without going
through (and paying for) the surveyor bunfight.


There is a law that says the freehold has to be offered and at a
maximum rate of 22 times the ground rent.

no there isn't

No there isn't what a right or a maximum?

there isn't a maximum (well there is, it's the amount that the
tribunal assesses if you take it that far, but it isn't a simple
calculation that you can do for yourself)


OK what is it then,

It's the sum that the tribunal's experts assess as the value.

as I've just gone through this.
Think it's called a section 42.

But basically the leasholder tells you how much they want and this is
just to increase the lease extention . If yuo don;t agree with that
amount you go through a solicitor who will tell you to get a surveyor
in which you pay for.
Then they get a surveyor in which you pay for. They come up with their
figures and come back to you with a new one. If you don't agree then
that's that no leasehold extention, unless you take it to a tribuneral.

Yep

so you take it to the tribunal (for which you pay).

and then when they have come up with their value that IS the maximum
value that the FH can charge for the selling/extending the lease
(today).

But getting a figure for that maximum value requires a lot of work and
expense by the purchaser.

There is not a simple finger in the air value for it (which was the
point at issue).

tim

So when our freeholder turned up, and suggested a figure (which was about
5% of what we paid for the property) we just paid it. The logic being we
could *easily* spend a couple of grand getting the "correct" figure, only
to discover it was what was suggested in the first place.

My guess is that is for a house

FH-ers of flats are much less likely to just knock on the door offering a
sale as the joint enfranchisement process is much more fraught

but when they knock on the door freely offering an extension they always ask
for an uplift in the GR as that ongoing income is what makes the holding the
FH worthwhile.

The statutory process requires that the GR become a peppercorn one, so they
don't like that at all and do everything that they can to avoid it.

Though opening offers for extensions that I have heard of have been
insultingly bad for the tenant, hoping to catch out someone who doesn't know
the score (which IME given the scant attention that the likes of Kirtsy and
Phil give to leases is not difficult). For one the uplift in the GR itself
was more than enough to cover the premium for the reversion but they we
still asking for a substantial sum for that.

Whilst it is clear that a request for 5K for a sale is not worth the work of
arguing over, an increase in GR to 500 pounds doubling every 10 years and a
premium of 20K, for an extension back to 99 years, most certainly is.

tim