Buying freehold

Hi there. We're in the process of selling our Victorian terrace - it's a leasehold property though we've never had to pay any rent for the lease. However the purchaser wants us to buy the freehold before proceeding with the sale.

My solicitor has contacted the leaseholder's solicitors and they are willing to sell. My solicitor and the leaseholder's solicitor have agreed to do the sale through conveyancing rather than go through the land registry as apparently it will be much quicker and easier.

The leaseholder's solicitor has asked us to make an offer. My question is this: is there a 'going rate' for this kind of transaction?

Any advice gratefully received.

Anything useful here - http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/housing/owning-a-home/home-owners/ground_rent

Thanks a mill for the link. Unfortunately they don't talk about how much you'd expect to pay.

I believe you'll need an auctioneer / valuer / estate agent to give you an estimated value on the leasehold and make an offer from there. AFAICR there used to be a rule of thumb of 7 to 10 times the annual ground rent, but I'm open to correction and it would all depend on location.

Hmm - that's interesting - though we've never paid any ground rent or been asked for it the 6 years we've been here. 10 x 0 = 0??

If you have the landlords consent, the Ground Rents approach would be as fast, and possibly cheaper. The vesting cert vests the freehold, and then you just convey the leasehold and freehold to the purchasers, and the benefit is that the vesting cert IS the proof of title to the freehold.

Loads of info here.

amerritt said:

Hmm - that's interesting - though we've never paid any ground rent or been asked for it the 6 years we've been here. 10 x 0 = 0??

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Even if you have never been asked to pay ground rent, the rent is specified in the lease, which you and/or your solicitor would have seen when buying the property.

The amount of rent will be in the lease which the solicitor will have. These things are usually done on the basis that you pay the landlords legal bill and a small amount for expenses if he has to take time out to sign the documents. The amount he will get from the land registry if you went that way would be very small. The legal fees will be the biggest cost, really you are talking about a couple of hundred euro for the freehold.

Forgot to mention that you will have to pay 6 years arrears of ground rent, usually this and another couple of hundred and legal bills is what is required