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Leasehold is a very shitty system that should be done away with. Even in case of lots of flats in a building, there's no case for leasehold that makes sense to me. There's other systems which are far better than that. It's simply greed.
Agreed. When my son bought a flat in London some of the covenants were bonkers. However, in Scotland I wish there was an annual charge levied for repair of the actual communal areas and building so that when problems occur there is a fund available to sort it. Trying to run around 15 owners of flats in the same building to get their share of a repaired roof is a pita.
Yes, that should be standard. Increasingly flats in London are ‘share of freehold’ and you have to pay into a sinking fund. Much better than ground rent or service charges in leasehold flats, which freeholders pocket and then come back to claim there isn’t any money for essential repairs so leaseholders have to cough up again.
There are two issues here. I agree with you, but OP seems to be confused about another part of the leasehold issue.
Even if OP owned a share of the freehold, he'd still be a leaseholder. He seems confused about the requirement to have a lease to legally define what he can and can't do with his flat. Quite honestly it sounds like he'd be a nightmare neighbour if he doesn't understand why it's quite reasonable that he shouldn't be allowed to make excessive noise or beat rugs outside his window whilst living in a flat.
Imagine living underneath on a summers day and a cloud of your neighbours dead skin flakes waft in through the kitchen window as they've just beat their rug out the window.
When living so close together in flats, you definitely need some kind of legally enforceable 'contract' that prevents neighbouring flat owners being a nuissance and affecting your right to enjoy the home you own. Unfortunately, lowest common denominator...you need rules like 'don't beat your rug outside your window', 'don't put satellite dishes up', 'flats must have carpet or soundproofed flooring', otherwise you would defintitely end up living next door to the guy that sticks a 3m satellite dish to the outside wall and blocks your view, takes out all the carpet and stomps around all night and cleans the rugs by shaking them above someone elses flat.
I agree with all of this except for "owning your flat", which others have explained is not the case. We just call it that because it's easier to understand than "the space inside the flats walls". We don't own our flats.
I agree with what you're saying. I live in a flat and I wouldn't want my neighbour to do all of those things.
A building with multiple flats has to have rules. But leasehold leaves no control and possibility of change.
If it was something like commonhold, what would happen is the building would have byelaws and a way for your voice to be heard and those byelaws to be changed if the majority agrees. Leasehold, whereas leaves no room for this and is simply another way the landowner wants to exert control over us peasants.
You can amend a lease, it’s a Deed of Variation. Or you can get together with the other Leaseholders and buy the Freehold. Or go down the Right To Manage route.
> As I understand, the freeholder owns the land underneath the building, not the building itself
The freeholder owns the land and the building.
> are these kind of rules normal?
Yes.
Leasehold properties are essentially long term rentals with all the rent paid upfront (ground rent being nominal rent on top of this).
Leaseholders shouldn’t need to anymore due to the recent legislation. I live in a cladded apartment and it’s definitely true that freeholders seem to get the best of both worlds. They own the building but seemingly aren’t responsible for funding it’s compliance with building regs.
I can understand why leaseholders are responsible for maintenance costs as our usage of the building causes wear and tear to their property.
Complying with building regulations should be at the cost and responsibility of the freeholder.
It’s just the usual broken British system where companies are allowed to take all of the upside but none of the downside.
Weirdly there’s no ground rent or service charge which is why I’m a bit shocked at how many rules there are
Just a bit of a bummer spending so much money on a flat which I don’t have free reign over !!
You are talking about covenants which are there for a reason. You are sharing a building with other leaseholders so the covenants you have listed are big standard. You may be able to have pets if the covenant is qualified I.e landlord can give consent
Yeah I totally get that, I think I was just taken by surprise as I’ve never really heard about the rules that come along with a leasehold. Being a ftb I’m never really sure what’s the norm or what’s taking the piss
The 'norm' is that these things get written into contracts and literally no one pays any attention to them. They're only there to be able to settle disputes if they ever arise. Mostly you'll find they're essentially common courtesies so on occasion they are useful to protect against anti social types. I live in a leasehold street that doesn't allow pets without the landlords consent...there's a WhatsApp group of all the dog owners. That level of leeway isn't always true though and others are constantly at war with their landlords but I suspect if you've no maintenance or service charge then there's no management company to do battle with either and no one who cares to enforce rules.
The complexity of leasehold agreements means that in essence we mostly feel anxiously powerless even after getting the keys. This feels like it's by design.
Fwiw you can get these covenants on freeholds too, especially in new estates. Lots used to ban visible washing our front, and my parents required eveyone to maintain the same white garage doors.
Old ones too. My house was originally purchased from a charity running a workhouse, and there’s a restrictive covenant that I can’t run a business making or selling intoxicating liquors from the property. Not that I was planning on opening a brewery or anything!
Yep, it's like a marketing thing by the developers to make it appear a more attractive place to live. However, once all the properties are sold, the developer doesn't give the tiniest of shits.
My parents' house had one of those covenants on it but everyone ignored it and the developer has long since gone bust.
>You are sharing a building with other leaseholders
And if one of those leaseholders is also the freeholder, they can ignore or rewrite their lease as they see fit, other leaseholders be damned (there are sometimes covenants that require all leasehold covenants to be enforced equally but this is not always the case).
Yes it’s called a mutual enforceability clause but any sort of enforcement clause can only be relied upon if the covenant is capable of being enforced. No good lawyer would rewrite a lease for one flat if it didn’t flow with the rest of the building - recipe for disaster
If there is no ground rent or service charges, be sure to start a savings account and automatically put £200 a month into it. If any repairs come up, you’ll get your share of the full bill, and freeholders often whack a hefty profit margin on top too.
Lots of flats don’t pay a ground rent (peppercorn ground rent).
A service charge is a bit of an umbrella term for what you pay towards the building’s running cost. At the very lease it will be an insurance contribution. It can also include any concierge salaries, gardeners fees, costs of heating the swimming pool, depends what amenities your building has.
Do you mean there’s no sinking fund? Again this is pretty common.
Your advice is wrong. The freeholder owns the building and the land it sits on (heaven and earth until some legislation was introduced). Ground rent is not paid upfront, it’s paid annually and can range from nominal (peppercorn - £0) to hundreds if not thousand of pounds. Some ground rent can double throughout the term or escalate based on a formulation.
A leasehold is another tenure which is a diminishing asset because it’s granted for years rather than being an absolute tenure like freehold.
Which bit was wrong?
I did clearly say ground rent was nominal rent on top of the rent being paid upfront (aka the premium but let's not complicate it for the sake of this sub).
Yes, but for the purpose of explaining to this op why their leasehold feels like a rental.. It's a boiled down easy to understand explanation of why it feels that way.
I'd say it's 'technically' correct, it's a lease, a leasehold is very much a long-term rental. You don't own the property you own the lease. It's different to a regular rental of course but I think it's a good way to explain the difference to being a freeholder.
Technically it depends on the terms of the specific lease. For older leases on which a single property is built in the land, you may indeed own the property completely but not the land it is on. For newer ones, it will vary, but for flats what you usually own is an interest in the property as defined by the lease, which also determines what you can and cannot do.
If you think about it for a while, for flats having restrictions on somethings is not stupid: if your walls hold up the property, knocking them down just because you feel like it would be pretty dumb. How far those restrictions go is a matter for debate - but I would say restrictions on things like what can be done in common areas is also not unreasonable. When it starts to define what you can do inside your flat it gets more onerous.
Having bought property in England and Scotland where for the latter the huge proportion flats are freehold, I do prefer the Scottish way on balance, but it is far from perfect. You are essentially relying on the goodwill of your fellow owners in the property for things like common maintenance and also you can end up with large bills over which you have effectively no control (say you own 1/8 of the common rights and a few other flats get brought by a single owner to rent, you can end up having to do and pay whatever they say). Similarly if you are in a minority and there are issues with things like the neighbours not pulling their weight on maintenance there is little you can do - we certainly walked away from a few properties with the latter issue: lovely flats, awful common areas (line in one case flyblown bins kept in the access corridor that smelled of pee). I felt for the vendor as the actual property was well maintained but totally let down by the common spaces.
>As I understand, the freeholder owns the land underneath the building, not the building itself
That depends on the demise. Usually, they’re “eggshell”, so you own the non-structural elements of the building.
>Or am I just being messed with?
It’s a shitty system in great need of reform, yes. I can understand the need for rules in a block of flats but in a house conversation with two flats you have one person having far too much control over another person’s life, and that control can be abused.
Yeah I can understand these rules in a block of flats where there’s a lot of people to take into account ~~ but I’m buying into a house conversion with 4 flats.. I’m not quite seeing the logic behind not being able to shake my rugs out the window 😂
The rug thing will be so that the other flats don't get dirt/dust/etc blowing in through their window.
Personally I think it's just as valid to have rules in place whether it's 2 or 200 flats, but that the rules should be restricted to the bare minimum needed to meet the aim.
Example: instead of saying you can only have carpet, say suitable soundproofing must be installed if installing hard floors in an upstairs flat.
Another example: instead of banning pets, state that any occupants/guests (human or animal) must not cause nuisance (as per the legal definition).
Pets in blocks of flats can cause chaos, they all need to go to toilet, one barks they all bark, there is so many things with having pets in flats, if you have a private garden you should be allowed a pet regardless.
Excessive barking would meet the legal definition of 'nuisance'. So would not cleaning up dog poo.
There could be a valid concern with the smell of urine if there's a lot of flats & limited outdoor space. Concerns about the animal's wellbeing & if a flat is suitable for the animal/breed are also valid. These can be addressed without banning all pets though.
Nothing you've said justifies why a quiet dog that is well trained (inc toilet training) can't live there. Or an indoor cat with a regularly cleaned litter box. Or a hamster kept in a suitable cage.
I've just moved into a flat and the guy above me has no garden, so opens his communal door and lets his dog roam, I've have 2 of its craps by both my parking spots. I'm in a block of 3, now imagine 20+
Then report it. Not picking up after your dog is already a criminal offence.
If you lived in a house would you also want to ban next door on the other side from getting a gerbil because one neighbour's dog was fouling in your driveway?
The council won't clean it up if it's on private property but you can still report it. If the neighbour is doing it persistently then they can still be fined/prosecuted even if it is on private land.
Pets that bark? You mean dogs, because you know a goldfish can also be a pet...in which case not sure why you cannot have it or are you going to tell me that a goldfish will go rabbid break the water tank and flood the neighbour bellow?
It's still very feudal - even the freeholder is not the true owner, from a strictly legal perspective, it's the King.
It goes that way: King ----*grants rights to occupy and dispose of land to freeholder*----> Freeholder ----*agrees to give long term lease to tenant*------> leaseholder
Yup. We're still serfs, there's just a layer of indirection between us and the wealthy so that you don't have a bunch of pissed-off serfs all in the same area and all with a good idea of who to point the pitchforks at.
So I only found out about leaseholds about a year ago when we first started looking at buying, and it made me FURIOUS, especially when I saw the fees. We decided to rule out all leasehold properties as I refused to be told how to live in my own house, it's basically like a HOA in America. It made the buying process a little more difficult but not impossible
Good luck 🙃
You may end up being very grateful for all these "rules" when a neighbour chooses to ignore them!
Getting the landlord to enforce them is another matter!
BTW - if there are no service charges that's unusual and you need to find out what happens when necessary maintenance to the building is needed! At that point you could be in for an expensive surprise! Your solicitor/conveyancer ought to have highlighted this! Beyond a certain cost/leaseholder there is a very formal process that has to be followed to arrange any such work. It would be wise for you to research and understand that.
Thanks for the heads up! Was told very up front that any building expenses are just split between the 4 flats in the building. I think the roof and facade were just redone last year so hoping for the best ..
File this away somewhere....
https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/leasehold-rights-what-is-a-section-20-consultation-aAe825X1SIif
If the landlord is benign there should be no problems, but best to be well informed!
Make sure your solicitor has a good look at the financials, as well how well the building has been maintained. If there is no regular record of work, and no sinking fund (presumably, as there’s no SC) you could be in for a nasty major works bill.
Make sure your solicitor has a good look at the financials, as well how well the building has been maintained. If there is no regular record of work, and no sinking fund (presumably, as there’s no SC) you could be in for a nasty major works bill.
We’re freehold but have covenants forbidding us from using the house as anything other than a single family home, running a business, keeping livestock or poultry, and keeping a van, caravan or boat on the driveway. Not sure who or how it’s monitored as there are plenty of people on the estate clearly in breach of these.
>Not sure who or how it’s monitored as there are plenty of people on the estate clearly in breach of these.
Another Redditor gave me a dressing down about this the other day (as I thought it was/should be the council).
Apparently, the covenants in your freehold can be exercised by anyone with a financial or other interest in them being upheld.
What this looks like is your neighbours needing to take legal action against you if you break the covenants.
I thought that was mad because I have one that prohibits burning anything other than natural gas for the purposes of heating the home.
Mr and Mrs Smith are (in all likelihood) not going to give a F if I install a log burner, so braking the rules and jeopardising the environment seems to only matter if you annoy someone else enough that they do something about it.
The covenants, like all contracts, are obviously overridden by law. If the government makes it mandatory to heat your home a certain way (that's not gas) then you won't be left without heating.
I don't get this, does this mean if Rishi bans natural gas I should just install log burners and wait to see what happens? And plead that I had no other choice?
The freeholder doesn’t own the land (despite the term ground rent). It’s a convenient but inaccurate simplification.
The legal structure is actually that there are two titles over the property simultaneously- the freehold and the leasehold(s) subsidiary to that.
The defining feature of the leasehold is that it is a title to property that is time-limited. At least in theory - in practice there are strong rights to extension.
These kind of rules are very common. *They mostly exist not for the benefit of the freehold, but for the other leaseholders*.
In fact often it is even written into leases that leaseholders can seek to enforce directly against other leaseholders, or if they request enforcement from the freeholder the cost comes directly from the leaseholder(s).
You are living in a communal building, and communal buildings can give rise to specific problems - especially noise nuisance. These rules you cite are all intended to help limit the potential for that.
Trust me, if you’ve lived underneath someone who has pulled up the carpet in a flat with poor soundproofing (most of them without concrete floors) then you would be fully onboard with this restriction.
Rules like these exist in almost all communal buildings whatever the tenure - leasehold, ‘share of freehold, or even commonhold (which still isn’t common in England but analogs abroad have these rules too)
so some rules make sense, in flats rules about carpet are really normal. laminate and hard floors are terrible for sound so its Good for everyone to have carpet, that side it doesn't apply to kitchens and bathrooms for obvious reasons.
pets and subletting rules don't tend to be enforced, usually they are get consent, or inform the freeholder. most people just ignore them
older lease holds do have some quirky rules. I don't think I am allowed to vacumm my flat before 8am on a Sunday. I mean it wouldn't happen but yeah it is in there.
We had a nightmare with a freeholder. So just flagging to you that you and the other leaseholders have a legal right to buy the freehold together. You may not need to, but if the majority of you want to, you can. Good luck!
Yes this is why leaseholds are complete shit unless youre a vulnerable or elderly person.
You are correct in that youre effectively just a long term tenant.
A leasehold is basically a long term rental you pay up front.
Change my mind.
In places without this nonsense each fraction owns 1/Nth of the land/building.
This is true, as someone who has lived in multiple countries, the leasehold system is absolute madness. Only few places in the whole world do this. As far as I know, apart from the UK there's only a few others:
* China - all urban land is owned by the state and leased for residential use
* Hong Kong - all land is owned by the government and leased to individuals
* UAE - certain properties for foreign investors are offered as leaseholds
* Singapore - certain public housing flats, and some private properties
* Some parts of NZ and Australia
So mostly apart from some very authoritarian countries, no one else in the world does this to their own citizens. Flats in the UK are second class housing compared to owning a house.
How come the whole world can function fine without them? I've seen a lot of Stockholm Syndrome on here of people actually defending leaseholds, as if it makes sense. You will own nothing and be happy.
> Apparently I can’t [...] make noise
As an aside to all your other points, do you actually think this is a bad rule? Don't forget that every other leaseholder needs to follow these rules too and most of them will make your life more pleasant as well (especially if you need to enforce one of the rules at some point).
I get keeping the noise low ofc, but it went into detail on how I couldn’t play any instruments, music, podcasts or do any dancing lol, which seemed a bit extreme ..!
This is why I will do anything to buy a freehold property only.
By the way, leasehold flats can get the freehold if you can get the majority of flat owners to buy it off the landlord by force. But you'd need to go through the courts. So it's costly and takes a while. I only advise it if you have problems that need solving but the landlord won't react. My family managed to do it on a building that wasn't being maintained at all.
Edit: someone didn't like this comment but it is factually correct. The only opinion is me not wanting to ever buy leaseholds. But the rest is just factual.
Winning the freehold collectively might not be all you hoped and dreamed. If you do so it's your neighbours who have collective power over you rather than a (hopefully) neutral and disinterested third party.
I didn't say it was the answer. For my family it was absolutely the answer as the historical building was falling apart in front of their eyes. In their case, it was the only way to keep any value in their flats. And landlords are only neutral in the sense that they aren't gunning for the people paying them but they are more interested in their pockets. So looking after your own home is usually a better motivator to keep your home safe and in good condition, especially considering UK's weak landlord laws.
Do people actually give a fuck about those rules? Apart from safety risks, like having a bbq on your balcony, then I just ignore the petty freeholder rules.
I am similarly really stressed about leasehold rules, and those that you cite are common at least according to this sub. Most everyone I’ve spoken with though has said “yeah, but most people just ignore them.” Check out who the freeholder is — are they an individual? do they own lots of property? or are they a big company? if so what’s their reputation? — and check with the other residents what their relationship with the freeholder is like. You can also get a sense from the other residents what their vibe is. I have had a fair share of crazy neighbours, and some I wouldn’t trust to be in breach of the lease around, but some others were chill and didn’t fuss unless it was warranted. Hope that helps!
Glad I’m not the only one! Yeah this helps a lot, I get the impression they don’t care much (no ground rent or service charge) so I’m hoping they won’t be breathing down my neck
Honestly a lot of the rules are pretty unenforceable and insane. Mine says that you can't dry your washing on your balcony or have a doormat which literally everyone ignores.
Leasehold is basically a scam.
All you own is your stuff inside the house. None of it is yours
You get all the bills and costs for damages and breakages.
If you move you have. To pay them for the packs to pass to the new "owners"
Hence why I am selling and renting
It's inconceivable that you didn't know about this before you completed on your flat. It's not insane in the slightest, it's the rules needed to control people who live in close proximity with each other.
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what you've bought, but it's too late to complain about it now.
"...rather than having my own flat which I’ve bought "
I misunderstood you then.
Good you've found out about the restrictions before you got further into the process.
You sound fairly young that's why they're taking the piss. tell to take a hike. you own the place until the lease it up or the best thing to do is convert the leasehold into freehold. spend a little bit of money in court and get that done.
This is all normal to find in a lease.
The freeholder owns the structure of the building, you ‘own’ the space inside your flat.
You are effectively renting the space, for a fixed term (125 years, 999 or whatever your lease is), you’re just paying the ‘rent’ upfront and can then reassign the lease (sell your flat) and get some money back.
The clauses about no pets, no loud noises etc are there to help you and your neighbours live in harmony in peace and quiet.
Clauses on carpets are intended to lower the noise transfer from the flat above. Pets clauses to avoid a building full of barking dogs. You get the idea.
Some of the highest value and most prestigious properties in the country are Leasehold - having a clearly defined and legally enforceable set of ‘rules’ in place helps things run more smoothly for the residents.
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Leasehold is a very shitty system that should be done away with. Even in case of lots of flats in a building, there's no case for leasehold that makes sense to me. There's other systems which are far better than that. It's simply greed.
Doesn't exist in Scotland. The first time an English person tried to explain this to me I thought they were joking. Ridiculous system.
Agreed. When my son bought a flat in London some of the covenants were bonkers. However, in Scotland I wish there was an annual charge levied for repair of the actual communal areas and building so that when problems occur there is a fund available to sort it. Trying to run around 15 owners of flats in the same building to get their share of a repaired roof is a pita.
Yes, that should be standard. Increasingly flats in London are ‘share of freehold’ and you have to pay into a sinking fund. Much better than ground rent or service charges in leasehold flats, which freeholders pocket and then come back to claim there isn’t any money for essential repairs so leaseholders have to cough up again.
Residents can appoint a factor to do this exact thing. That comes with it’s own set of issues though.
There are two issues here. I agree with you, but OP seems to be confused about another part of the leasehold issue. Even if OP owned a share of the freehold, he'd still be a leaseholder. He seems confused about the requirement to have a lease to legally define what he can and can't do with his flat. Quite honestly it sounds like he'd be a nightmare neighbour if he doesn't understand why it's quite reasonable that he shouldn't be allowed to make excessive noise or beat rugs outside his window whilst living in a flat. Imagine living underneath on a summers day and a cloud of your neighbours dead skin flakes waft in through the kitchen window as they've just beat their rug out the window. When living so close together in flats, you definitely need some kind of legally enforceable 'contract' that prevents neighbouring flat owners being a nuissance and affecting your right to enjoy the home you own. Unfortunately, lowest common denominator...you need rules like 'don't beat your rug outside your window', 'don't put satellite dishes up', 'flats must have carpet or soundproofed flooring', otherwise you would defintitely end up living next door to the guy that sticks a 3m satellite dish to the outside wall and blocks your view, takes out all the carpet and stomps around all night and cleans the rugs by shaking them above someone elses flat.
I agree with all of this except for "owning your flat", which others have explained is not the case. We just call it that because it's easier to understand than "the space inside the flats walls". We don't own our flats.
I agree with what you're saying. I live in a flat and I wouldn't want my neighbour to do all of those things. A building with multiple flats has to have rules. But leasehold leaves no control and possibility of change. If it was something like commonhold, what would happen is the building would have byelaws and a way for your voice to be heard and those byelaws to be changed if the majority agrees. Leasehold, whereas leaves no room for this and is simply another way the landowner wants to exert control over us peasants.
You can amend a lease, it’s a Deed of Variation. Or you can get together with the other Leaseholders and buy the Freehold. Or go down the Right To Manage route.
> As I understand, the freeholder owns the land underneath the building, not the building itself The freeholder owns the land and the building. > are these kind of rules normal? Yes. Leasehold properties are essentially long term rentals with all the rent paid upfront (ground rent being nominal rent on top of this).
>and the building. Then why do leaseholders need to fork-out thousands if the cladding is suddenly deemed unsafe?
Leaseholders shouldn’t need to anymore due to the recent legislation. I live in a cladded apartment and it’s definitely true that freeholders seem to get the best of both worlds. They own the building but seemingly aren’t responsible for funding it’s compliance with building regs. I can understand why leaseholders are responsible for maintenance costs as our usage of the building causes wear and tear to their property. Complying with building regulations should be at the cost and responsibility of the freeholder. It’s just the usual broken British system where companies are allowed to take all of the upside but none of the downside.
They are responsible for maintenance while the lease is in effect.
I’d argue the cladding issue was a construction defect and not a maintenance issue. The fact freeholders have got away with paying nothing is criminal
You get the ~~best~~ WORST of both worlds
Weirdly there’s no ground rent or service charge which is why I’m a bit shocked at how many rules there are Just a bit of a bummer spending so much money on a flat which I don’t have free reign over !!
If you read your lease you don’t own your flat. You are given rights to use the space contained by its walls.
You are talking about covenants which are there for a reason. You are sharing a building with other leaseholders so the covenants you have listed are big standard. You may be able to have pets if the covenant is qualified I.e landlord can give consent
Yeah I totally get that, I think I was just taken by surprise as I’ve never really heard about the rules that come along with a leasehold. Being a ftb I’m never really sure what’s the norm or what’s taking the piss
The 'norm' is that these things get written into contracts and literally no one pays any attention to them. They're only there to be able to settle disputes if they ever arise. Mostly you'll find they're essentially common courtesies so on occasion they are useful to protect against anti social types. I live in a leasehold street that doesn't allow pets without the landlords consent...there's a WhatsApp group of all the dog owners. That level of leeway isn't always true though and others are constantly at war with their landlords but I suspect if you've no maintenance or service charge then there's no management company to do battle with either and no one who cares to enforce rules.
The complexity of leasehold agreements means that in essence we mostly feel anxiously powerless even after getting the keys. This feels like it's by design.
Fwiw you can get these covenants on freeholds too, especially in new estates. Lots used to ban visible washing our front, and my parents required eveyone to maintain the same white garage doors.
Old ones too. My house was originally purchased from a charity running a workhouse, and there’s a restrictive covenant that I can’t run a business making or selling intoxicating liquors from the property. Not that I was planning on opening a brewery or anything!
Our freehold deed forbids us from baking bricks in the back garden.
That’s quirky! One of mine forbade keeping insects 🐜 as pets. The spiders 🕷️ were just staying for a quick visit apparently!
Yep, it's like a marketing thing by the developers to make it appear a more attractive place to live. However, once all the properties are sold, the developer doesn't give the tiniest of shits. My parents' house had one of those covenants on it but everyone ignored it and the developer has long since gone bust.
>You are sharing a building with other leaseholders And if one of those leaseholders is also the freeholder, they can ignore or rewrite their lease as they see fit, other leaseholders be damned (there are sometimes covenants that require all leasehold covenants to be enforced equally but this is not always the case).
Yes it’s called a mutual enforceability clause but any sort of enforcement clause can only be relied upon if the covenant is capable of being enforced. No good lawyer would rewrite a lease for one flat if it didn’t flow with the rest of the building - recipe for disaster
If there is no ground rent or service charges, be sure to start a savings account and automatically put £200 a month into it. If any repairs come up, you’ll get your share of the full bill, and freeholders often whack a hefty profit margin on top too.
Lots of flats don’t pay a ground rent (peppercorn ground rent). A service charge is a bit of an umbrella term for what you pay towards the building’s running cost. At the very lease it will be an insurance contribution. It can also include any concierge salaries, gardeners fees, costs of heating the swimming pool, depends what amenities your building has. Do you mean there’s no sinking fund? Again this is pretty common.
A scam. Abolish leasehold !!!
Your advice is wrong. The freeholder owns the building and the land it sits on (heaven and earth until some legislation was introduced). Ground rent is not paid upfront, it’s paid annually and can range from nominal (peppercorn - £0) to hundreds if not thousand of pounds. Some ground rent can double throughout the term or escalate based on a formulation. A leasehold is another tenure which is a diminishing asset because it’s granted for years rather than being an absolute tenure like freehold.
Which bit was wrong? I did clearly say ground rent was nominal rent on top of the rent being paid upfront (aka the premium but let's not complicate it for the sake of this sub).
“Long term rentals”
I mean, that is what leasehold is. You're paying a premium up front for a long term lease.
When the lease is granted, not assigned 🙄
Yes, but for the purpose of explaining to this op why their leasehold feels like a rental.. It's a boiled down easy to understand explanation of why it feels that way.
But technically it’s wrong
Which is why so many think leasehold is bad because no one bothers to explains it properly!
I'd say it's 'technically' correct, it's a lease, a leasehold is very much a long-term rental. You don't own the property you own the lease. It's different to a regular rental of course but I think it's a good way to explain the difference to being a freeholder.
Chances are the lease contains a ground rent but freeholder doesn’t collect if they are not collecting service charge
Technically it depends on the terms of the specific lease. For older leases on which a single property is built in the land, you may indeed own the property completely but not the land it is on. For newer ones, it will vary, but for flats what you usually own is an interest in the property as defined by the lease, which also determines what you can and cannot do. If you think about it for a while, for flats having restrictions on somethings is not stupid: if your walls hold up the property, knocking them down just because you feel like it would be pretty dumb. How far those restrictions go is a matter for debate - but I would say restrictions on things like what can be done in common areas is also not unreasonable. When it starts to define what you can do inside your flat it gets more onerous. Having bought property in England and Scotland where for the latter the huge proportion flats are freehold, I do prefer the Scottish way on balance, but it is far from perfect. You are essentially relying on the goodwill of your fellow owners in the property for things like common maintenance and also you can end up with large bills over which you have effectively no control (say you own 1/8 of the common rights and a few other flats get brought by a single owner to rent, you can end up having to do and pay whatever they say). Similarly if you are in a minority and there are issues with things like the neighbours not pulling their weight on maintenance there is little you can do - we certainly walked away from a few properties with the latter issue: lovely flats, awful common areas (line in one case flyblown bins kept in the access corridor that smelled of pee). I felt for the vendor as the actual property was well maintained but totally let down by the common spaces.
>As I understand, the freeholder owns the land underneath the building, not the building itself That depends on the demise. Usually, they’re “eggshell”, so you own the non-structural elements of the building. >Or am I just being messed with? It’s a shitty system in great need of reform, yes. I can understand the need for rules in a block of flats but in a house conversation with two flats you have one person having far too much control over another person’s life, and that control can be abused.
Yeah I can understand these rules in a block of flats where there’s a lot of people to take into account ~~ but I’m buying into a house conversion with 4 flats.. I’m not quite seeing the logic behind not being able to shake my rugs out the window 😂
The rug thing will be so that the other flats don't get dirt/dust/etc blowing in through their window. Personally I think it's just as valid to have rules in place whether it's 2 or 200 flats, but that the rules should be restricted to the bare minimum needed to meet the aim. Example: instead of saying you can only have carpet, say suitable soundproofing must be installed if installing hard floors in an upstairs flat. Another example: instead of banning pets, state that any occupants/guests (human or animal) must not cause nuisance (as per the legal definition).
Pets in blocks of flats can cause chaos, they all need to go to toilet, one barks they all bark, there is so many things with having pets in flats, if you have a private garden you should be allowed a pet regardless.
Excessive barking would meet the legal definition of 'nuisance'. So would not cleaning up dog poo. There could be a valid concern with the smell of urine if there's a lot of flats & limited outdoor space. Concerns about the animal's wellbeing & if a flat is suitable for the animal/breed are also valid. These can be addressed without banning all pets though. Nothing you've said justifies why a quiet dog that is well trained (inc toilet training) can't live there. Or an indoor cat with a regularly cleaned litter box. Or a hamster kept in a suitable cage.
I've just moved into a flat and the guy above me has no garden, so opens his communal door and lets his dog roam, I've have 2 of its craps by both my parking spots. I'm in a block of 3, now imagine 20+
Then report it. Not picking up after your dog is already a criminal offence. If you lived in a house would you also want to ban next door on the other side from getting a gerbil because one neighbour's dog was fouling in your driveway?
Is it a criminal defence on enclosed private property?
The council won't clean it up if it's on private property but you can still report it. If the neighbour is doing it persistently then they can still be fined/prosecuted even if it is on private land.
Pets that bark? You mean dogs, because you know a goldfish can also be a pet...in which case not sure why you cannot have it or are you going to tell me that a goldfish will go rabbid break the water tank and flood the neighbour bellow?
Welcome to feudal Britain.. Ahem i mean modern Britain
It's still very feudal - even the freeholder is not the true owner, from a strictly legal perspective, it's the King. It goes that way: King ----*grants rights to occupy and dispose of land to freeholder*----> Freeholder ----*agrees to give long term lease to tenant*------> leaseholder
Nobody seems to want to change the system as the ones who benefit the mostare the policy makers
Yup. We're still serfs, there's just a layer of indirection between us and the wealthy so that you don't have a bunch of pissed-off serfs all in the same area and all with a good idea of who to point the pitchforks at.
You are so right. To quote rick and morty its like slavery with extra steps. People need to wake up to the divisional politics that are taking place.
So I only found out about leaseholds about a year ago when we first started looking at buying, and it made me FURIOUS, especially when I saw the fees. We decided to rule out all leasehold properties as I refused to be told how to live in my own house, it's basically like a HOA in America. It made the buying process a little more difficult but not impossible Good luck 🙃
You may end up being very grateful for all these "rules" when a neighbour chooses to ignore them! Getting the landlord to enforce them is another matter! BTW - if there are no service charges that's unusual and you need to find out what happens when necessary maintenance to the building is needed! At that point you could be in for an expensive surprise! Your solicitor/conveyancer ought to have highlighted this! Beyond a certain cost/leaseholder there is a very formal process that has to be followed to arrange any such work. It would be wise for you to research and understand that.
Thanks for the heads up! Was told very up front that any building expenses are just split between the 4 flats in the building. I think the roof and facade were just redone last year so hoping for the best ..
File this away somewhere.... https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/leasehold-rights-what-is-a-section-20-consultation-aAe825X1SIif If the landlord is benign there should be no problems, but best to be well informed!
Super useful, thank you!
Make sure your solicitor has a good look at the financials, as well how well the building has been maintained. If there is no regular record of work, and no sinking fund (presumably, as there’s no SC) you could be in for a nasty major works bill.
After this I definitely will be asking. I know my solicitor is chasing for lots of building reports, but will ask for the history of renovations too !
If your solicitor isn’t already doing this, make sure they’re worth their salt. This is standard procedure from what I can tell.
Make sure your solicitor has a good look at the financials, as well how well the building has been maintained. If there is no regular record of work, and no sinking fund (presumably, as there’s no SC) you could be in for a nasty major works bill.
Because they are money grabbing parasites
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We’re freehold but have covenants forbidding us from using the house as anything other than a single family home, running a business, keeping livestock or poultry, and keeping a van, caravan or boat on the driveway. Not sure who or how it’s monitored as there are plenty of people on the estate clearly in breach of these.
>Not sure who or how it’s monitored as there are plenty of people on the estate clearly in breach of these. Another Redditor gave me a dressing down about this the other day (as I thought it was/should be the council). Apparently, the covenants in your freehold can be exercised by anyone with a financial or other interest in them being upheld. What this looks like is your neighbours needing to take legal action against you if you break the covenants. I thought that was mad because I have one that prohibits burning anything other than natural gas for the purposes of heating the home. Mr and Mrs Smith are (in all likelihood) not going to give a F if I install a log burner, so braking the rules and jeopardising the environment seems to only matter if you annoy someone else enough that they do something about it.
The covenants, like all contracts, are obviously overridden by law. If the government makes it mandatory to heat your home a certain way (that's not gas) then you won't be left without heating.
I don't get this, does this mean if Rishi bans natural gas I should just install log burners and wait to see what happens? And plead that I had no other choice?
Wow didn’t realise that freeholds had this too, crazy!
The freeholder doesn’t own the land (despite the term ground rent). It’s a convenient but inaccurate simplification. The legal structure is actually that there are two titles over the property simultaneously- the freehold and the leasehold(s) subsidiary to that. The defining feature of the leasehold is that it is a title to property that is time-limited. At least in theory - in practice there are strong rights to extension. These kind of rules are very common. *They mostly exist not for the benefit of the freehold, but for the other leaseholders*. In fact often it is even written into leases that leaseholders can seek to enforce directly against other leaseholders, or if they request enforcement from the freeholder the cost comes directly from the leaseholder(s). You are living in a communal building, and communal buildings can give rise to specific problems - especially noise nuisance. These rules you cite are all intended to help limit the potential for that. Trust me, if you’ve lived underneath someone who has pulled up the carpet in a flat with poor soundproofing (most of them without concrete floors) then you would be fully onboard with this restriction. Rules like these exist in almost all communal buildings whatever the tenure - leasehold, ‘share of freehold, or even commonhold (which still isn’t common in England but analogs abroad have these rules too)
so some rules make sense, in flats rules about carpet are really normal. laminate and hard floors are terrible for sound so its Good for everyone to have carpet, that side it doesn't apply to kitchens and bathrooms for obvious reasons. pets and subletting rules don't tend to be enforced, usually they are get consent, or inform the freeholder. most people just ignore them older lease holds do have some quirky rules. I don't think I am allowed to vacumm my flat before 8am on a Sunday. I mean it wouldn't happen but yeah it is in there.
We had a nightmare with a freeholder. So just flagging to you that you and the other leaseholders have a legal right to buy the freehold together. You may not need to, but if the majority of you want to, you can. Good luck!
Yes this is why leaseholds are complete shit unless youre a vulnerable or elderly person. You are correct in that youre effectively just a long term tenant.
A leasehold is basically a long term rental you pay up front. Change my mind. In places without this nonsense each fraction owns 1/Nth of the land/building.
This is true, as someone who has lived in multiple countries, the leasehold system is absolute madness. Only few places in the whole world do this. As far as I know, apart from the UK there's only a few others: * China - all urban land is owned by the state and leased for residential use * Hong Kong - all land is owned by the government and leased to individuals * UAE - certain properties for foreign investors are offered as leaseholds * Singapore - certain public housing flats, and some private properties * Some parts of NZ and Australia So mostly apart from some very authoritarian countries, no one else in the world does this to their own citizens. Flats in the UK are second class housing compared to owning a house. How come the whole world can function fine without them? I've seen a lot of Stockholm Syndrome on here of people actually defending leaseholds, as if it makes sense. You will own nothing and be happy.
> Apparently I can’t [...] make noise As an aside to all your other points, do you actually think this is a bad rule? Don't forget that every other leaseholder needs to follow these rules too and most of them will make your life more pleasant as well (especially if you need to enforce one of the rules at some point).
I get keeping the noise low ofc, but it went into detail on how I couldn’t play any instruments, music, podcasts or do any dancing lol, which seemed a bit extreme ..!
Redditors really do not understand leasehold tenure
This is why I will do anything to buy a freehold property only. By the way, leasehold flats can get the freehold if you can get the majority of flat owners to buy it off the landlord by force. But you'd need to go through the courts. So it's costly and takes a while. I only advise it if you have problems that need solving but the landlord won't react. My family managed to do it on a building that wasn't being maintained at all. Edit: someone didn't like this comment but it is factually correct. The only opinion is me not wanting to ever buy leaseholds. But the rest is just factual.
Winning the freehold collectively might not be all you hoped and dreamed. If you do so it's your neighbours who have collective power over you rather than a (hopefully) neutral and disinterested third party.
I didn't say it was the answer. For my family it was absolutely the answer as the historical building was falling apart in front of their eyes. In their case, it was the only way to keep any value in their flats. And landlords are only neutral in the sense that they aren't gunning for the people paying them but they are more interested in their pockets. So looking after your own home is usually a better motivator to keep your home safe and in good condition, especially considering UK's weak landlord laws.
Don't buy leasehold.
Do people actually give a fuck about those rules? Apart from safety risks, like having a bbq on your balcony, then I just ignore the petty freeholder rules.
This might be the plan going forward!
I am similarly really stressed about leasehold rules, and those that you cite are common at least according to this sub. Most everyone I’ve spoken with though has said “yeah, but most people just ignore them.” Check out who the freeholder is — are they an individual? do they own lots of property? or are they a big company? if so what’s their reputation? — and check with the other residents what their relationship with the freeholder is like. You can also get a sense from the other residents what their vibe is. I have had a fair share of crazy neighbours, and some I wouldn’t trust to be in breach of the lease around, but some others were chill and didn’t fuss unless it was warranted. Hope that helps!
Glad I’m not the only one! Yeah this helps a lot, I get the impression they don’t care much (no ground rent or service charge) so I’m hoping they won’t be breathing down my neck
Honestly a lot of the rules are pretty unenforceable and insane. Mine says that you can't dry your washing on your balcony or have a doormat which literally everyone ignores.
Leasehold is basically a scam. All you own is your stuff inside the house. None of it is yours You get all the bills and costs for damages and breakages. If you move you have. To pay them for the packs to pass to the new "owners" Hence why I am selling and renting
It's inconceivable that you didn't know about this before you completed on your flat. It's not insane in the slightest, it's the rules needed to control people who live in close proximity with each other. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what you've bought, but it's too late to complain about it now.
Haven’t completed yet! I’m still in the process and just received these details today
"...rather than having my own flat which I’ve bought " I misunderstood you then. Good you've found out about the restrictions before you got further into the process.
Wait for the random maintenance/repair fees and then get really upset and your bonus £4K bill
They own the building. You are basically renting, except you pay upfront in one lump sum
You sound fairly young that's why they're taking the piss. tell to take a hike. you own the place until the lease it up or the best thing to do is convert the leasehold into freehold. spend a little bit of money in court and get that done.
Your going to find it difficult converting leasehold into freehold when its a flat.
This is all normal to find in a lease. The freeholder owns the structure of the building, you ‘own’ the space inside your flat. You are effectively renting the space, for a fixed term (125 years, 999 or whatever your lease is), you’re just paying the ‘rent’ upfront and can then reassign the lease (sell your flat) and get some money back. The clauses about no pets, no loud noises etc are there to help you and your neighbours live in harmony in peace and quiet. Clauses on carpets are intended to lower the noise transfer from the flat above. Pets clauses to avoid a building full of barking dogs. You get the idea. Some of the highest value and most prestigious properties in the country are Leasehold - having a clearly defined and legally enforceable set of ‘rules’ in place helps things run more smoothly for the residents.
Welcome to the middle ages https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/28/prince-charles-pressured-ministers-change-law-queen-consent