# Planning permission for leasehold property



## galleryman (9 Feb 2009)

My house is leasehold (over 100yrs left on lease). If i want to do some building work, as well as applying for planning permission do I need to seek permission from the leaseholder?


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## MOB (9 Feb 2009)

You do not need permission to apply for the planning.

There could be circumstances in which your lease technically obliges you to get permission for alterations ( and such obligations are frequently ignored - but check with your solicitor to be safe), but you can certainly go ahead with planning application anyway.

Probably best in long term to buy out your freehold.  Many people do this through the land registry without using a solicitor.  Check the land registry website for details under 'ground rents'


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## galleryman (9 Feb 2009)

Thanks MOB,

Buying out the leasehold sounds like a good idea. Is there any formula or benchmark for calculating the cost? I have no idea if it would cost €100's €1,000's or €10,000's. Any idea?


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## MOB (9 Feb 2009)

It's small enough money, given that most ground rents or only a few quid per annum.

About 30 times annual rent would be normal.  It varies cyclically with the yield on government securities ( as best I recall the idea is that you pay a capital sum such as would buy government bonds which would yield the equivalent of the ground rent; )


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## galleryman (9 Feb 2009)

many thanks


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## twofor1 (10 Feb 2009)

galleryman said:


> Thanks MOB,
> 
> Buying out the leasehold sounds like a good idea. Is there any formula or benchmark for calculating the cost? I have no idea if it would cost €100's €1,000's or €10,000's. Any idea?



 I bought mine out for 7.5 times my annual ground rent of €23, so €172.50 plus a fee of €30. Then a further fee of €50 to have the vesting certificate registered in Registery of Deeds. In my case anyway that’s all it cost.

  It was a simple process but lengthy. It took over a year to get the signed consent form from landlord here and in my case there was a head landlord in England who also had to sign the consent.  When everything was sent in it took a further 4/5 months until I received the vesting cert.

  Land Registery were very helpful and approachable.

http://www.landregistry.ie/eng/Grou...nd_Rents_Purchase_Scheme_Explanatory_Leaflet/


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## galleryman (10 Feb 2009)

sounds good, thanks for that. I don't really have the time to do all the forms etc so for me it's worth while paying my solicitor to handle this, as long as it's a few hundred € in fees and not a couple of thousand €.   Besides, I still have a mortgage so I presume that I would need my solicitor to take up the title deed from my bank, they won't give it to me directly.


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