Buying the freehold

[PTurner]

I have the chance to buy the freehold of the block of flats where I own a flat. At present little maintenance is done. If I buy the freehold as a company can I get reluctant leaseholders to pay their contribution towards the maintence. What happens if they dont.

I feel if the block is improved my own flat will be worth a lot more.

Any comments or advice would be welcome

[Trenners]

Hi PSimpkins,

I have a lot of experience of buying the freehold for a block of flats ... having just gone through this process recently myself.

The main benefit of buying the freehold is 1) you no longer pay ground rent to the current freeholder and 2) the freeholder is free to appoint the management company to manage the day-to-day running of the flats on their behalf.

We bought the freehold because the management company were 1) useless and 2) really expensive. We figured that if we bought the freehold we could reduce management costs by upto 50% (by taking control of the day-to-day running ourselves) etc.

If you do not go ahead and buy the freehold then you might find yourselves in a worse situation than you are in today because if a 3rd party buys it instead (there are lots of companies always on the look out for freeholds for sale) then they might appoint an even more expensive management company (meaning service charges will rise further) and there are no guarantees that the flats will be maintained either.

Are you planning to purchase the freehold yourself ... or will all flat owners have the opportunity to purchase their share of the freehold?

If you want to discuss this quesiton in more detail with me ... feel free to drop me an email to: mark@mlettings.com

Best wishes,

Mark

[tony_ mort]

Look at http://www.lease-advice.org.uk/

If you can buy the freehold then you should.