Long Leasehold Houses in Southampton

Some houses in Southampton are held on long leases for 998-1,000 years.  There are older leasehold houses in the Central Area of the City, in Highfield, St. Denys and parts of Shirley and Bassett, and also in Woolston.   These leases date back to the period 1860-1910 and the annual ground rent per house is anything from a few shillings to about £6.

In parts of Bitterne and Sholing large areas were leased as brickyards in the 1860s with a ground rent that is now so low as to be a joke.   Because of this it simply is not worthwhile for anybody to try to prove they own the freehold and in most cases the freeholder cannot be found.   Many houses have since been built on the areas in question.

There are also pockets of Leasehold property in small areas of Bitterne, Bitterne Park, Sholing, and even West End, where leases have been granted between about 1930 and 1970.

In most cases, it ceased to be financially worth while to collect the ground rent some time ago, and so in many cases the freehold was sold to the lessee.   In some cases the freeholder was old and could not be bothered to collect the ground rent.   Once he or she died, the family could not be bothered either, and contact was often lost.   Even if a lessee wanted to pay the ground rent it was often difficult to find the freeholder.   Because of all this there are three situations that can apply to one of these houses:

  • It is freehold, because the freehold has been purchased at some time in the past.

  • It is leasehold but the freeholder can be contacted.   (In these cases it is usually possible to buy the freehold for an outlay of £600-£1,000 including legal costs of the your solicitor and freeholder's solicitor).

  • It is leasehold but the freeholder cannot be found.   (Because the seller has never been asked for ground rent we often find that he does not realise his property is still leasehold).  Once you have lived in the house for 2 years as lessee you have the right to buy the freehold.   The difficulty is that you have to serve an application on the freeholder and if you do not know who he is, the costs involved in getting court orders to get round this, make the whole exercise unreasonably expensive.

In most cases not having the freehold is not a big problem in practice.  One thing that does crop up is that many leasehold properties are registered at the Land Registry with what is called "Good Leasehold" Title which is technically not quite as good as the more normal "Absolute" title.   The difference is pretty theoretical in case of these properties, but unfortunately the Council of Mortgage Lenders' Handbook (which sets out the detailed points solicitors have to check) is ambiguous as to whether this kind of title is acceptable.   This often means that a seller has to pay for an insurance policy costing about £50--£100 to protect the buyer and his lenders against the risks that are thought to exist.

If you instruct us to act for you on a sale or purchase we can explain further what is involved and deal with these issues for you.    A lot of solicitors automatically charge an extra £100-£200 just because the property is leasehold.   This is understandable for flats where there is a lot more work, but for houses where there is no service charge etc, it is not appropriate, because the extra work is much less.  We do not make any extra charge for typical older house with a long leasehold title, so you may wish to Get a Quote from us to deal with a sale or purchase of such a house, or Contact Us.  Our Local Knowledge is useful and can avoid problems if you are selling and you ask us to Arrange a Home Information Pack.

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