The leasehold property scandal rocking the new homes industry
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 มิ.ย. 2018
- Thousands of homeowners that bought a new-build property on a leasehold basis are now trapped in properties they can’t sell, according to a Which? investigation.
As part of our research we met Andrea Millward. The bank adviser bought her first home - a new-build Taylor Wimpey property in Merseyside - in 2011. She has since seen the cost of her ground rent double.
From confusing contracts to spiralling fees and shoddy legal advice - click here to read our full report:
www.which.co.uk/news/2018/06/...
Which?: www.which.co.uk
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House has got to be FREEHOLD. I can't stress this enough. If it ain't I would tell them to do one.
@Seymour Butts did you end up selling it?
Even freehold homes aren’t safe. Ours is subject to a maintenance charge annually
Buying freehold property on an new estate which hasn't been adopted by the council has "estate charges" which is essentially the same thing, uncapped, unregulated and if unpaid can still see you losing your house. Until regulation comes in to protect Freehold owners best avoiding new builds altogether
The first thing my parents ever, ever, ever taught me about buying a house was to never buy one on lease hold land.
Buying and owning property is a subject that is a basic to life and needs to be taught to children to prepare them for the future instead of filling their heads with useless fluff they will never need outside a classroom.
A new house built being sold as a Lease is outrageous, it is bad enough that flats have to pay for ground rent & service charges. I was going to buy a new nicely built two bedroom flat when I was 19 in Swansea, Wales, UK for £125,000 & as it was nice & new I was going to take 95% mortgage & buy it until I looked closely at the charges & realised I would be paying £190x12 = £2,280 a year in service charges & £350 ground rent, this would have ruined me if I didnt look carefully at it & it seems that every one who bought one of those flats are now selling them for £80,000 due to those huge fees, & worse part of all they are only 4 story building so the fees are just a con!
Waw... It's such a scummy business isn't it
Leasehold should actually be illegal
I'm just learning about this. I'm just amazed that this is a thing. How is this lawful? It's fraud, it's feudal and it needs to be banned. I don't mean "going forward, no new builds.." I mean, the land seized and granted to the tenants and the landlords to compensate every penny back to them. Anything short of that is unacceptable.
The irony of Which? covering this story when one of their former directors - Anthony Winston Burton- went on to become a director of Greenbelt Group, a land management company that so many freehold homeowners despise as they are bound by their deeds to pay for the upkeep of open public land adjacent to their homes. Check out the review of greenbelt Group on Trustpilot and Google.
This is really bad. People are being misslead into buying homes that they believe there is a predictable ground rent on. On once the deal is done, the complications that have to be undone make the joy of having a home unnecessarily stressful.
How is this legal?! £9800 a year is insane
The worst thing is that in 99 or 100 years the house goes back to the Duke or Lord's family that owns the ground the house is built on. The only people who own a leasehold house are the owners of the land under the house.
The government state that they are looking at banning leasehold (there was a time that 'houses' for were except from this and what apartment owners have been suffering for years..but seems like the government have far too much annual revenue to lose. Hence, extending it to houses!.
How do you do something as HUGE as buying a house without doing any research?? Only a nutter or a fool buys leasehold.
Ronnie and Reggie, would be so proud
Houses are normally sold as FREEHOLD, why are some houses 🏡 now being sold as LEASEHOLD. Something very dodgy is going on...
Unfortunately it's legal. People are just getting bad advice.
Theres nothing legal in stealing from people! The government, developers and even solicitors are parties to this disgrace. Even so called freeholds in new developments come with ground rents and services charges. This is a national scandal
@Seymour Butts how to check if the houw or appartment leasehold or not?
@@which @Seymour Crack Do you know of a good way that someone can search for freehold-only properties? The standard property sites are really limited and obviously geared towards leasehold or shared ownership. Zoopla's the easiest to use so far since it allows keywords (so you can enter "freehold" but even then it still returns shared ownership in its results. I know this is an old video so might be a long shot but any help would be appreciated!
D A The best way is the old fashioned way of going into the estate agents. Most will call you if a property they think you might be interested in comes for sale if you don’t find what you’re looking for. I’ve also noticed that leasehold and shared ownership are becoming very popular on property search websites nowadays and it’s not just the new builds either.
You have to read your lease. Don't just rely on the conveyancer, especially if they were recommended by anyone involved in the sale! Similar to many first time buyers, I have no choice but to go for a flat so leasehold is inevitable, I pored over every single flat's lease before I even viewed it if I could get my hands on it prior. I have finally found one with £105 p/a service charges, negligable ground rent (peppercorn amount) and a named, contactable freeholder based in the UK. Still haven't signed as I'm reading and re-reading the lease, calculating examples of RPI changes to estimate service charge changes etc. It's not as simple as buying a freehold, you have to be really really careful. This woman was fleeced though!
I'm amazed that mortgage companies are willing to do deals on such leasehold properties.
what is a ground rent? Is the house like a trailer or a condo where you have to lease the ground it's on top of?
It’s a normal house but yes you have to lease the ground it’s on top of. You are essentially renting the land while owning the house. All a big con.
Leasehold is good if you don't want to worry about external maintenance of the property. People should read the fine print before buying leasehold as you only own the internal part of the building.
There is legislation which allows you to buy the freehold of the property according to a set calculation in certain circumstances. The government needs to get on with lease extension reforms and banning new leasehold properties. Planning policy should be changed so that all new flats should be leasehold with a share of freehold or common hold.
Be careful some houses sold as freehold but once solicitor does checkd finds some are leasehold restrictive covenant s hsve a survey first
This is why leaseholds are cheaper, there's always all these extra costs. Leaseholders don't really own property like a freehold, they just buy a long lease on a property.
So, is there a way out of this?
Not an easy one. All of the case studies we looked at had to work really hard to make any headway against this. There's lots of detail in the full report.
Wow the ground rent is £295 per year
We should go back to pre Thatcher, when the council owned the houses ,charged reasonable rent,and looked after the upkeep of the house,but then people were conned into buying their house,no not conned thought they were above council houses,working class Tories and pretentious,as result we find ourselves in 2023 where house prices and private landlords charge the earth for ex council houses that the Uber rich bought up and now charge what they like because there is not enough affordable housing to buy or rent,so blame Thatcher and snobby people who bought their council house.
You think this is bad? Shared home ownership flats in London have service charges of £1100 per month after just 3 years
I think these things happen only in India... I'm surprised 😯
21st century Serfdom
Can yo prove your conned?
Sale if can ir auction
only stupid people will buy property on leasehold