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Thanks mate! Looking forward to being there!
It could be good to pick your brain maybe. Basically, the house is freehold, and the freehold was purchased from The Dulwich Estate in 1979 (i think), but my solicitor doesn't know if there was either any ground rent owed before the freehold purchase, or if there has been any costs owed to them since then.
I think the estate is struggling to find any records in answer to my solicitors enquiries, and when the house is transferred to us, any monies owed would be as well. Apparently in ordinary circumstances you can put a covenant in the purchase agreement that mitigates against this, but the house is being sold by the executor of a will, so it is proving to be difficult to go down this road.
Did you have any experience with the estate struggling to find records? Or whether it would have been difficult for a resident to dodge paying them ground rent (obv you wont have experience of it in the 70s!)?
fly-
The Estate is probably better than most freeholders as they are not absent, have an estate office and yearly budget of a few million. also the residents are active with groups for each estate/block development so there is a bit of weight behind it’s leasholders.
sounds like your property may have always had a ground rent to the estate even though it was built by the council. (The estate website details it’s history if that is of interest) my current property built in 1986 is leashold but not to the estate so it was a bit of infil and likely sold to a developer, think we pay £30 or something a year to Dulwich.
Can’t believe they don’t have records as they would have collected on each propety since it was built even if it was bought under right to buy at a later date, can’t your seller just get indemnity insurance? it’s a few hundred quid, we will have to do this on my partners place as there is a missing document the land registry/Islington council cannot find from 1983 even though the current lease supersedes that.edit:
your property might be an ‘enfranchised property’.
https://www.thedulwichestate.org.uk/media/2281/the-managers-certificate-march-2021-signed.pdfyou will be on the red ‘compulsory acquired area on this map:
https://www.thedulwichestate.org.uk/about-us/celebrating-400-years/post-war-planning
Mr_Smyth
Its on the Dulwich estate, it’s down the road from me (both where i am now and where we are trying to buy)
I pay a ground rent to Dulwich and the new place (touch wood) is leasehold owned by them and built for the estate by Wates/Austin Vernon the estate architect, think the Kingswood estate was built by Camberwel/LCC if my local history is correct.
Oh and welcome to the hood.