A bit confused.

[Tony74]

I took out a mortgage, and have lived in the house my wife and I are currently in for 6 years now. I know it's leasehold, but at no point has anyone contacted us about, well, anything at all. I don't even know who the freeholder is.

Eventually I would like to contact them and look into taking over the freehold, there is also a lot of renovations that need doing, for instance, there is NO kitchen, just a cooker in the cellar head and an old stone sink. Not ideal for a family with two kids really.

I don't mind paying the cost for renovating the house, we've been saving for some time for it, however, I don't want to renovate someone else's house with my money.

How would I go about finding out who the freeholder is?

I have a mortgage of £62.500, the house is currently worth £54,000 max with today's market. would this be what I had to pay to buy the house from the freeholder, almost doubling my mortgage?

And finally, can I stop paying building insurance since it appears from what I've read, the freeholder should be covering this, although they have never taken any money from me?

Hope these questions aren't too dumb, I've scanned through the threads and just can't find anything specifically that helps me.

[Ollie2000]

you can find out who owns the freehold from the land registry. you can download the freehold title document from their website, it normally costs £3. the only thing is, the freeholder might not have informed the land registry if their address has changed, so that could be out of date, but it's definitely your best bet.

[Tony74]

you can find out who owns the freehold from the land registry. you can download the freehold title document from their website, it normally costs £3. the only thing is, the freeholder might not have informed the land registry if their address has changed, so that could be out of date, but it's definitely your best bet.

Thank-you Ollie, that gives me somewhere to start at least

[DNM2012]

Thank-you Ollie, that gives me somewhere to start at least

You also need to read your lease. If you haven't got it you can also get that from the Land Registry.

You should also check out- http://www.lease-advice.org/

[Ollie2000]

The price for the freehold shouldn't be anywhere near as much as what you paid for the leasehold (or its currents value). You will need to negotiate this with freeholder if you agree to buy it. a good rule of thumb to get a rough idea of the value of a freehold is 20 times the annual ground rent of all leasehold properties belonging to the freehold. (yours will be set out in your lease and it sounds like there are no others)

[Tipper]

If your freeholder won't play ball you can force him to sell the freehold as described on 'lease-advice.org' . Maybe worth telling him that during any preliminary negotiations. Good luck.

[leaseholdanswers]

Erm if you own the house even as a leasehold it will with virtually without exception, be yours to put into repair. Enfranchising in its current state will help the figures though.

Buy a sink unit or old units on freecycle think of your poor wife and kids