Leasehold Worries

[texasranger]

I was under the impression when I bought my flat that the 99 year lease would start again after 99 years, however a housing association has taken over the freehold and in their latest booklet there are some FAQ's and one states that at the end of the lease the ownership of the property will revert to the association.
I have been hammering away at my mortgage trying to pay it off early and now I am afraid I will pay it all off and when the lease runs out it will be taken away (if not from me, but from my children).
Is this really the norm? I feel very worried about this, can anyone give any advice?
Thanks.

[Richard Webster]

Unless the landlord is a charitable housing trust, if you have owned the lease for at least 2 years you are entitled to require a 90 year extension at a nil ground rent. You will have to pay the going rate for this, however, which will depend on the value of the property and the length of the lease. Typically it is a four or five figure sum.

Depending on the lender, leases become unmortgageable when their terms gets down to less than 55-70 years. You would then have to extend in order to sell.

[texasranger]

Thanks for that advice. So I guess at some point, no matter if you have paid off the mortgage the flat will never be mine to keep?

[New Homes Expert]

You can get the lease extended for a payment.
You wont be around in 99 years if you are you wont care about a lease!

If you want to own everything and have no restrictions BUY FREEHOLD the only way to go in my opinion.

[Richard Webster]

If you want to own everything and have no restrictions BUY FREEHOLD the only way to go in my opinion.

That's fine if you can afford a freehold house, but a freehold flat with other flats in the same block having separate freeholds is a disaster and unmortgageable, so if all you can afford is flat, it must be leasehold..

[New Homes Expert]

There are plenty of flats that are FREEHOLD. They are certainly not unmortgageable.

Are you worried about losing some business Richard?

[Richard Webster]

There are plenty of flats that are FREEHOLD. They are certainly not unmortgageable.

Are you worried about losing some business Richard?

I do know what I am talking about, and perhaps you would tell me about to some of these flats in England & Wales that have individual separate freehold titles that have been easy to get mortgages on.

If they are in the Scarborough area a few local lenders will lend on them.

RBS and Nat West will in theory lend on a freehold flat provided that there is mutually enforceable scheme of covenants (and there usually isn't.)

Apart from those rather limited exceptions there are other situations where the word "freehold" is used, but the flats are not pure freehold flats and in two of the three cases must have leases. A lot of people refer to these as freehold flats but they are not.

These are:

1.Shared Freehold -see http://www.rwco.co.uk/shared_freehold.htm

2.Criss-cross, crossover, or Tyneside flat scheme - see
http://www.rwco.co.uk/crossover_leases.htm

3.Freehold of Building subject to leases of other flats - see
http://www.rwco.co.uk/freehold_subject_to_leases.htm