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TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Goodbye ground rent as leasehold changes kick-in today

The government's ban on charging ground rent on leases in England and Wales comes into force today. 

Only a peppercorn ground rent is now considered legal on new residential leases established from today. 

The new provisions apply where a lease is granted on or after today, June 30 2022, if it is a long lease exceeding 21 years for a single dwelling, and if it was granted for a premium - but this includes where a lease has been changed by a ‘deemed surrender and regrant’ and no premium was required.

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The new provisions do not apply if the lease is not regulated, nor for transactions when the exchange of contracts for a lease (other than an option or right of first refusal) was before today’s date. 

It also does not apply for leases that are for community-led housing or on business leases, nor on shared ownership leases where rent is payable on the landlord’s owned share and the peppercorn rent limit applies to the leaseholder’s owned share.

In addition to ground rents being restricted to a peppercorn for those affected properties, the new legislation also bans landlords from charging for the collection of the peppercorn rent. There is no obligation to actually collect a peppercorn from leaseholders.

Statutory lease extensions for flats must already be granted at a peppercorn, and statutory lease extensions for houses remain unchanged. Enforcement of the new provisions will be by councils, which have the power to order any prohibited ground rent to be repaid.

The government has issued new guidance here for leaseholders, freeholders and agents.

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    Long time coming, developers had moved on a while ago to the toxic “ Estate Rent”, charging for grass cutting etc and not allowing the local authorities to adopt the new estates. This will be the next headline. I am just waiting for the something “ big” to happen on one of these private estates…. Sink hole maybe ? Then we will see the penny drop with future buyers.

  • George Dawes

    They say build back better but in my experience most new builds are very shoddily built compared to the old stuff

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    The timber framed new builds that I'm watching going up will be lucky to last 50 yrs, them old Victorian builders knew how to build them old terraced houses, 140 yrs later and they are still standing strong , and people love living in them

     
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    Shoddy and also generally much smaller

     
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    Indeed George - We went looking at some new detached houses 6 years ago as we had sold and were in rented ( ironic I know). God awful build quality with small sized furniture to make the house look normal, they were also leasehold and had estate rent !! Double whammy…. After 4 months we found a lovely older detached, freehold, no estate charging 👍🏻 Big rooms and decent gardens. God help the young now, the children of those who made provision will be ok, but the others ☠️☠️

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    While these new builds claim to be greener, they're built miles from any facilities, resulting in loads of short inefficient car journeys whereas Victorian buildings tend to be within walking distance of most amenities, schools etc.

    Pity the Victorians are all dead!

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    Green indeed! Some fun, green facts from me. Where I am in Basildon, Redrow have built housing estates in two areas of note over the last seven or so years - one of which required the demolition of two sides of a beautiful park, and the other was the site of a much loved animal sanctuary/reserve.

    On the plus side, however, in the first case, they apparently only got planning permission if they built a road crossing above ground on the route into the town center - because the existing underpass right next to it was a well-known site of rapes, muggings and drug deals. We therefore got a handful of accompanying rose bushes on that crossing to offset the loss of sizeable chunks of that park and the increased pressure from those new homes on an infrastructure that was already struggling. Fair deal....

     
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    Any news on the reforms for extending leases, ie, marriage values ect

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