Punch Robson Solicitors offers expert advice to tenants and landlords
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UNDERSTANDING LEASEHOLD REFORM
Expertise – returning Helen Bainbridge has joined Katherine Eaton and Neelam Shan in the Punch Robson Solicitors residential conveyancing team.
WORDS: PHILIP TALLENTIRE PICTURE: TOM BANKS
Punch Robson Solicitors offers expert advice to tenants and landlords
It’ s the hot property topic everybody is talking about.
Leasehold reform for residential apartments and houses will have a potentially huge impact on landlords and tenants, so it’ s vital for those on both sides of the changing legislation to get the best, up-to-date legal advice.
Understandably, there are many people who will be confused by the reforms and how they will affect them. That’ s where Punch Robson Solicitors comes in.
Based in Ingleby Barwick, the longestablished and highly respected Teesside law firm is constantly keeping an expert eye on the changes to leasehold legislation and has started sharing that knowledge.
As head of Punch Robson’ s residential conveyancing team, Katherine Eaton understands that many tenants and landlords will struggle to understand the impact of the radical reforms.
“ It is very topical at the moment,” she says.“ The changes will be of great interest to landlords who own blocks of flats and let them out on long leases. They will also interest people who own long leases, whether they live at that property or sublet to tenants.
“ The government said the leasehold property system is not working effectively for the tenants who hold the leases.
“ A lot of landlords have been in uproar about some of the changes and they applied to the High Court for a judicial review. However, the High Court dismissed that challenge to the legislation and ruled that the government’ s leasehold reforms are lawful.
“ The industry has been rocked by the changes in legislation but there’ s more yet to come. And the result is it’ s a bit of a free-for-all in terms of what’ s going to happen next.”
A freehold property, typically a house on a street, belongs in perpetuity to the owner once the mortgage is paid off.
But that’ s not the case with a leasehold property, which can often be an apartment in a block of flats or large building.
In such cases, a person buys an apartment for a term of years( for example, a 99-year lease) so the property does not permanently belong to the purchaser.
That can be a potential problem for the leaseholder because as the length of lease runs down, lenders start to question the potential value of the property. It’ s critical that leaseholders can add more time by paying to extend their leases and the reforms will impact this process.
Tenants and landlords are understandably concerned about the uncertainty in the property sector that followed the initial outline of the reforms, since further legislation is still required to implement the detail, and this could take several years.
“ What we do as solicitors is very carefully scrutinise what people’ s leases say when they’ re buying a property,” says Katherine.
“ We advise them on the amount of the ground rent and what impact that could have in terms of the present – or the future – because some ground rents are fixed throughout the term of the lease, but other ground rents increase over time.
“ The vast majority of my clients are
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