We purchased a leasehold condo on Oahu 3 months ago, and were told by our realtor that the fee was available for purchase which is why we bought the property. When we initiated the process to purchase the fee a few days ago, we were told by the lessor's management that the fee purchase option expired. We were also not given notice that the fee purchase option expired and feel misled by this whole ordeal.
We have it in writing from the lessor's management that the fee was available for purchase back when we were in the process of buying the property. However, they did not write when the offer was going to expire, and our realtor did not ask the expiration date either.
- What are our rights?
- If a fee is offered during the lease renegotiation process, is the lessor required to offer the fee to the leaseholders first, or a third party?
Thank you for your time in explaining this. Leasehold properties are entirely new to us, and we thought our realtor would have been experienced enough to help us with due diligence. Ultimately it's our fault for not doing more due diligence and taking our realtor's words for this property.
Looking up listings for leasehold properties for sale in London - the service charge and ground rent is essential information. The length of the lease is sometimes mentioned but that's it. Essential information like the annual service charge and ground rent is not mentioned in about 95% of listings. Why do you leave this out?
Leaseholds = owned until 2072, then you're out.
Stratas = owned indefinitely.
Are folks aware of this?
I live on an island where most of the land is held by the city, state, and housing agencies. There is a program for new construction that provides people with a 99-year lease on a lot when they build a new house. I applied for a construction-to-permanent mortgage through a local bank but they only wanted to offer me an ARM because the land is not owned. I went to the credit union where I am currently a member and they hemmed and hawed about it for two weeks and finally decided that they don't finance leasehold estates.
Does anybody know of a bank that does this? I want to avoid yet another unnecessary credit check (I now have 4 in the last month from these applications). Or should I just take the ARM from the local bank? I would be doing a 15-year mortgage regardless of whether its an ARM or a FRM.
Side note, this is further complicated by the fact that the structure I want to build is a manufactured home, technically a singlewide (but on a permanent foundation).
A previous post about mortgage payment reminded me of a situation I had a few years ago. So here goes.
I bought a house in Manchester UK, which I though was freehold, but turned out to have an ancient ground rent (sort of like a leasehold). This ground rent was the grand sum of 4 GBP per year. For the first few years I received a hand typed bill once per year as the ground rent was owned by an elderly lady, presumably the ground rent was an old family asset. I paid the bill promptly by cheque, after all it was only 4 GBP.
Now I think the elderly lady died because for a while the charge was collected by the legal company in charge of her estate. However, the ground rent was then sold to a large company who's primary business was debt collection and who were aggressive about collecting the rent quarterly. Still that was not really a problem, but I was annoyed enough at having to send 4 cheques for 1.50 GBP a year to investigate further, with a view to purchasing the whole thing myself.
I found out that firstly that all these ancient ground rents would be annulled in 2020, or somewhere around then, so there wasn't actually much to pay if I wanted to purchase the whole thing, I think it was about 80 GBP.
I also found out that under the ancient law pertaining to these ground rents that I had to pay the fee or give them produce from the land to the value of the fee (I told you it was ancient). Additionally, the ground rent holder had to collect the rent, that is at the door in person!
So next time the new company sent me the vaguely threatening bill. I simply sent them a letter offering produce from my garden to the value of the fee (I had some nice tomatoes at the time, so offered them those) and left it to them to decide when they wished to collect. Of course the company never came to collect any tomatoes and tried to get me to sent the money to them and threatened legal action etc. However, once I sent another letter to their legal guy, pointing him to the law on the matter, I then received a one-off offer to buy the entire ground rent for 25 GBP. which I did. A good result as I was completely happy with buying at the market price of 80 GBP!
NO THIS MIGHT SEEM REALLY OUT THERE , BUT GIVE IT A READ, i DID AND I WAS AMAZED HOW MUCH SENSE THIS GUY MAKES https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/03/09/how-capitalist-is-singapore-really/
In the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, Singapore ranks as the second most “economically free” country in the world just behind Hong Kong. Since many use this index as a shorthand for “most capitalist” countries, a lot of prominent people end up saying some really weird things about Singapore. For instance, in his Liberty Con remarks, Bryan Caplan claimed Singapore was one of the closest countries to the capitalist ideal.
It is true of course that Singapore has a market economy. But it’s also true that, in Singapore, the state owns a huge amount of the means of production. In fact, depending on how you count it, the Singaporean government probably owns more capital than any other developed country in the world after Norway.
The Singaporean state owns 90 percent of the country’s land. Remarkably, this level of ownership was not present from the beginning. In 1949, the state owned just 31 percent of the country’s land. It got up to 90 percent land ownership through decades of forced sales, or what people in the US call eminent domain.
The Singaporean state does not merely own the land. They directly develop it, especially for residential purposes. Over 80 percent of Singapore’s population lives in housing constructed by the country’s public housing agency HDB. The Singaporean government claims that around 90 percent of people living in HDB units “own” their home. But the way it really works is that, when a new HDB unit is built, the government sells a transferable 99-year lease for it. The value of that lease slowly declines as it approaches the 99-year mark, after which point the lease expires and posse
... keep reading on reddit ➡Good evening folks,
My wife and I are having some issues at our home. We currently own our home which is freehold, however it sits on private land owned by our houses developer. The land used to be a farm but has been developed.
The landowner is currently trying to charge us a Service Charge for ground maintenance, septic tank emptying, ad hoc repairs and other generic maintenance activities. I’ll post the original email below as to what he outlined before we moved in.
I’ve challenged the landowner over the costs on the service charge, he initially stated that all activities were at cost… I asked for a breakdown and he said that he was taking £780 for his time, £1500 accountancy fees and that he was claiming the VAT back on all purchases he made. Naturally I challenged this as it went against the original agreement (sent via email) asking for a full itemised breakdown and receipts.
I’ve been met with childish responses and borderline vitriol since and am still trying to get clarifications.
The reason I come here is I’m trying to find information online but it isn’t clear as it all refers to leasehold.
The clarifications I’m trying to get are;
-Refund Pro Rata in the event of moving out and then the new occupier will pick up at the time of them moving in. -Full itemised breakdown at the end of each year -Receipts available on request
Unfortunately he believes I’m attacking his personal character and is being quite petulant and obtuse.
My questions to you guys are:
- Does his email constitute something legally binding? If so, are the charges for his time against what the agreement says?
- Is he legally obliged to provide receipts?
- If I don’t pay, what are my liabilities or risk?
Just to confirm, our house is freehold and he owns the land our house is on.
“Morning Everyone > > I have been asked by my solictor to confirm estate fee's which i explained i had not put to much thought into as i am happy for everyone just to cover the costs of the communal upkeep , i have listed below what i forsee these costs relating to : > > 1: Communal lighting > > 2: Septic tank emptying > > 3: Entrance area/ gate upkeep / servicing > > 4: Retaining flower bed upkeep ( weeding , replacing plants , keeping cladding on wall clean ) > > 5: communal hedge trimming > > 6: General driveway maintenance > > 7: Bin store area disinfecting , sweeping etc > > I think these are the main points and as i have said i wan
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