Buying the Freehold of Your House

If you are the owner of a house which is held on a long lease (i.e. one that was originally granted for a term of more than 21 years), you can purchase your freehold whether or not you live there. It is sufficient if you have held the lease for either the past two years, or for at least two years during the past ten years.

The procedure is governed by the Leasehold Reform Act 1967.

Claims are commenced by giving to your landlord a notice in the prescribed form (known as the notice of claim), to which your landlord should reply within two months.

Generally, the landlord admits your claim but does not agree the price you wish to pay for the freehold. Where the parties cannot agree on the price payable (or the amount of the landlord’s costs), an application to the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) can be made and the FTT will determine the purchase price.

Once the purchase price has been agreed, there will be the additional conveyancing work required in agreeing the other terms of the transfer and completing and registering the same. This will include dealing with all necessary HMRC stamping and Land Registry registration requirements.

If you have a mortgage we will liaise with your lender because it will be necessary to enter into an additional deed of substituted security, which we will prepare.

In the unlikely event that the purchase price cannot be agreed and you have to make an application to the FTT (which is the exception rather than the rule), our additional charges will be calculated mainly by reference to the time spent on your matter. The rates would be agreed with you beforehand and, at that stage, we would give you as accurate an estimate as possible as to what the likely total charges will be.