Would a house thats leasehold be offputting?

Is there no option to buy it? We live in a leasehold property and will definitely be purchasing it before we sell (but then our lease management company are arseholders)

It would be offputting, but a 999 year lease is better than average! If it is good in the other ways I would seriously consider it.

Doesn't worry me. Ours is leasehold and it doesn't make any difference really. As others have said you could always buy it.

We're leasehold but it's a flat so that's pretty standard.

Wouldn't be put off it again but for a house you may have to be careful, as I learned from a friend who nearly bought a leasehold one before having to pull out.

She discovered that under the lease, she would not own the roof (i.e. she couldn't build a terrace or anything like she'd planned, and the house could theoretically be built on top of at any time in the future and she wouldn't be able to object) and that the property company she was buying from did not own the space where her parking was, which meant that although they would always have to provide her with a parking space because she was paying them for one, it wouldn't necessarily always be in the convenient place it started out in (e.g. they wouldn't even guarantee that the space would always be within half a mile of the house!).

I'm sure that is an exceptional case of a building company being numpties (it was new build), but those are the sort of things I'd look out for if it were me.

Baby Buns, my first thought would be to enquire if purchasing the freehold was possible, I might ask the EA after christmas when we will be seriously looking (if its still on the market!)

Jellicle, I know, it is offputting, thats why Im umming and ahhing! I agree that 999 years on a leasehold is pretty good, so its much more positive than a 99 year lease, but I want freehold lol. Think I might investigate further.

Ta both

With such a large Lease and small ground rent, it wouldn't put me off. I presuming there are no common areas to the property that will engender service charge too?

It may well be worth looking into the option of buying the freehold from the current freeholders - for a small increase in asking price they may be willing to sell

Bombay - interesting, thanks for the insight. This house is probably 1970's/80's built and the whole street is leasehold, I reckon the original builders might own the land, I like owning the land Im on and the space above! My other concern was restrictions that the leaehold might throw up. Hmmmm.

Betty B - if we knew we could buy the freehold then it would be perfect I reckon!

Is it old or new build? Ours is circa 1913 so ground rent is minimal (£1 something per annum) and the management company acts on behalf of an individual, however this company have implemented conditions around our home insurance and we're supposed to complete questionnaires with our rent returns each year that are becoming increasingly more intrusive. Also if they forget to send an invoice (which happened one year) they still charge us £25 for a reminder letter.

We ignore their conditions (as advised by our solicitor who said they weren't enforcable, and one I'm sure actually contradicts competition legislation). As I said, we will be purchasing the lease but via our own solicitor, which will probably be more costly but at least they'll be acting in our favour.

That said, I'm sure there are many leasehold properties with no problems at all.

No common areas, no. its a detached house on its own plot so no service charges

This is it, and no matter how many houses I look at online (I have a long, shortlist!) I keep coming back to this one.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-19111282.rsp?pa_n=5&tr_t=buy&mam_disp=true

Ours is leasehold from the council. Twice a year they send us a bill for the groundrent.

We enquired into buying the lease, but the council wanted us to pay their legal fees up front before they would start. WTF?

I like it - love the kitchen!

To behonest if it were me I would go for it! Your solicitor will receive a copy of the Lease at the start of the transaction and be able to indicate if there are any onerous conditions in it