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  • I live in a share of freehold property, a house converted into 7 flats. It's fine, like any other, except you don't have to worry about the lease so much. in our case, basically you own a share of a company that owns the whole house. It can be a bit of a pain in the ass dealing with the other neighbours but ours are pretty nice and we make a bit of an effort to stay on good terms. however there is still a lease (you lease the flat off of the company you part own) so ensure the underlying lease is long enough to be acceptable to your bank. Ours wasn't so we got the seller to extend the lease to 150 years (cost them something like £2.5k).

    PM me if you need ay proper / longer advice

  • Pretty much as @fredtc says @Pifko.

    I'm in a similar thing. Share of Freehold with the flat below and the flat above. I'm a director/shareholder of the company that owns the freehold, and a signatory on the account, and it's hardly any work each year to keep it ticking over. The freeholder (the company in our case) has to sort out the buildings insurance, and the costs are split up between the flats (we all contribute directly to the freehold company's bank account via monthly standing order). The liability for other things should also be set out in the agreement (we're all jointly responsible for the roof in slightly different shares, getting the trees crowned every 3 years, etc). Done right the monthly standing order (the management fee if you were just in a leasehold flat) pays for everything and also accumulates a little spare funds for inevitable unforeseen problems.

    Certainly shouldn't put you off, and owning the freehold takes away all of the lease worries. With even fewer other freeholders it should be even easier.

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