House has two leases, can I buy the freehold or head lease?!

[Emiden]

I am in an area of the country where the council retains the freehold on developments - ostensibly to avoid fragmentation of estates. My developer owned the head lease when I bought the property, and has since sold it to a leasehold management company. The head lease is a peppercorn rent to the council and will now have 996 years remaining. The sublease is £125pa, increasing every 10 years at RPI, and has 222 years remaining.

I am planning to contact lease advice, and some local solicitors too, but I wanted to get a rough idea of what I am dealing with and find out if anyone has any experience of anything similar.

Does the Leasehold Reform Act allow me to purchase the freehold from the council? It isn't and was never a council house.

Does the Leasehold Reform Act allow me to purchase the head lease? Do I have access to the support etc of the tribunal, any legal protections? Or would purchasing the lease from the management company be a business transaction?

Would I be better off waiting for leasehold reforms to come through and then seeing what's what?

For reference my house/development has no shared areas, there is no maintenance or communal gardens or anything. One stretch of the houses has a shated bin alley behind them but I do not have any access to this. When I was purchasing the property I asked the solicitor about purchasing the head lease but he put me off it - I think because he didn't want to deal with it moreso than anything, implied it would be complicated and would delay the process.

I'd like to buy the freehold/lease because I would like to make some changes to the house (put in a new window, change the front garden, change a walk in wardrobe to a room etc) and don't want to have to pay the management company for the privilege.

[Gordon999]

You can get free advice on proceedure for buying the freehold title for a leasehold house by download from LEASE's website.

https://www.lease-advice.org/faq/i-o...-the-freehold/

You probably have to wait 2 years before you as a leaseholder can make a compulsory purchase of the freehold title..

Since there is still over 200 years unexpired term remaining on the lease, the valuation to pay for the freehold title is related to the annual ground rent income.

[Emiden]

I was asking specifically if anyone had any experience or knowledge in situations where there is a both a head lease and a sublease on a property - that is, there is a freeholder landlord, a sublandlord, and me the tenant and property owner.

The lease advice website mentions that enfranchisement can include buying the freehold and headlease but there is nothing what happens to the sublease - it doesn't seem right that I could buy the freehold and then simply terminate the sublease. Nor does anywhere suggest I have to purchase leases from both the freeholder and from the sublease landlord. But if I only purchase the freehold/head lease then I am in a situation where I have to continue to pay the management company £125 a year because of the sublease, whilst I also receive a peppercorn rent from the management company as I now own the freehold.

If anything I would much rather purchase the sublease, so that my remaining relationship is with the council landlord and the only remaining lease is a 999 year peppercorn rent one. But it is very unclear if the 1967 leasehold reform act is any help at all in purchasing a sublease - I am not clear if that falls under enfranchisement.

If anyone has any relevant knowledge or experience with enfranchisement when it comes to subleases and headleases of houses I would like to hear from you!

[Gordon999]

Send a written complaint to CMA before 12 Jul 2019 ( this friday 5.00pm ) .

CMA are calling for information and your situation would be of interest to them.

Ask CMA to declare ground rent in the sub-lease is an unfair contract term because it is not paid to the freeholder. and increasing every 10 years will make your property unsellable.

One of the national builders Taylor Wimpey has set aside £130 Mil to correct toxic leases.

https://forums.landlordzone.co.uk/fo...ority-campaign

[Emiden]

Thank you!

[Lawcruncher]

Schedule 1 of the Act deals with enfranchisement by sub.tenants https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/88/schedule/1

[Emiden]

Thank you so much!

[Tipper]

We enfranchised our freehold at which point the head lease and our own lease were merged into our new freehold title.

[Gordon999]

Does your property title say your property is a leasehold house ?

Send your enquiry to the legal advisor at LEASE ( www.lease-advice.org )