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Difference between Leasehold and Freehold properties.
The biggest difference is whether you own a property or you have a landlord, on a freehold property you own your home, with a leasehold property you will have a landlord.
Freehold.
With a freehold property you own the building and the land; it will be registered at the land registry as yours, you are therefore the freeholder.
The great thing about this is you can do what you want, when you want to, subject to planning laws.
What you will not have to do is pay any rent to a landlord, you will not have the responsibility to maintain the property in the way someone else sees fit, or any other stipulations or obligations detailed in the lease.
Leasehold.
You will enter into a lease with the landlord (the owner of the property), in the lease it will stipulate how many years you will have the property for, the length of term can be as high as 999 years or as low as 40.
The lease will detail your responsibilities and the responsibilities of your landlord, maintaining the property is normally split, as most leasehold are flats the communal areas such as halls and entrances are normally the freeholders responsibility plus external walls and the roof, this is not always the case and your solicitor will explain all this to you.
You will have a number of fees to pay; this could be insurances for the building, service fees and maintenance fees, plus a ground rent.
Unlike a freehold property, you will need permission to undertake work on the property.
You may also find that your lease has restrictions; these can be that you cannot have a dog, or let out a room, any restriction will be contained in the lease.
What happens to the value of a leasehold property?
When the term of the lease is up the property reverts to the landlord.
The right to extend the lease.
To government has introduced a number of laws to protect leaseholders, these include the right to extend the lease or the right to buy the freehold.
Make sure if you are buying a leasehold property you understand the right to buy the freehold, whilst you do have a right to buy the freehold you could be liable for the legal costs of both sides.
Speak to your solicitor about first refusal on the purchase of the freehold, whilst this applies with flats it does not always apple with houses, and in some cases the freeholds have been sold to investment companies.
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If your property is a flat.
If you have lived in the property for two or more years and originally the lease was a long lease, you have the right to extend the term of the lease by 90 years, but this is not always straight forward and will involve costs, the landlord has the right to reject your request in which case you may have to take them to court.
When buying a leasehold property you can ask the landlord to extend the lease when you are buying it.
If your property is a house.
Very like a flat but the lease extension is 50 years, once again best advice would be to try to get the landlord to extend the lease at the time of purchase.
In both of these cases a solicitor will be able to help.
Common hold.
Introduced in 2002 to avoid some of the problems with leasehold properties, it's very rare but it works for block of flats, each flat will be classed as freehold, the freeholders will own part of a company that manages the 'common parts' of the building - walls, roof, hall ways etc
The benefit of this is to rule out any possibility of an unscrupulous landlord.
Summary.
■ Understand the terms of the lease, and if you can, how the landlord has treated the leaseholders in the past.
■ Check the term and extend if necessary - this may change the price.
■ Understand any future costs - will the roof be replaced soon etc
■ Speak to your mortgage company as they may have criteria for not lending on certain leasehold properties.
■ Get legal advice and understand in detail what you are agreeing to
You should not be put off buying a leasehold property, but understand your lease.
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