Buying our Freehold Interest

How to Buy our Freehold Interest

To receive a quote please email sales@compton.group or telephone 01792 315500 (option 2)

The benefits

There are a number of benefits in buying the freehold:-

• Your home becomes more valuable.
• You are no longer bound by the covenants in the lease. These could include restrictions on whether you can alter your property or where you can place your buildings insurance.
• You no longer have to pay ground rent.
• A future sale of your house should be more straightforward.

Buying our freehold interest – Houses

If you are interested in buying our freehold interest in your property, please email us at sales@comptongroup.com or telephone 01792 315500 (option 2) asking for a quote: this is done without creating any obligation on either side. The quote will be exclusive of any unpaid rent (which will need to be paid). We will hold the quoted price for one month. Our quote assumes that your current use of the property (usually as a single private dwelling house) will continue and that there are no existing breaches of the lease. Our price is inclusive of all our costs and the Land Registry fee to register the freehold in your name.

It is your choice whether you use a solicitor or deal with us direct. If you deal with us direct, we can prepare all the paperwork; this includes the deed transferring the freehold interest from us to you and the application to the Land Registry to register the freehold in your name.

Frequently asked questions

If you are considering buying the freehold or if you have any questions please click here first for a range of frequently asked questions and answers.

 
 
Buying our freehold interest – One off payment

We will ask you in the letter containing the quote whether you wish to purchase with a single payment or to spread the cost by paying 10 equal monthly instalments. If you wish to purchase with a one-off payment, we will require (when you write back to accept the quote) a cheque for the full amount made payable to The Compton Group. You will then need to allow about 4 weeks before we get the documentation back to you.

Alternatively once you have written back to us accepting the quote you can pay by credit or debit card on the buying the freehold, leasehold or rent charge interest payment page.

Buying our freehold interest – Payment by instalments

You may prefer to spread the cost of buying your freehold interest with 10 equal monthly instalments. We can arrange for a direct debit to be set up. However, we will not transfer the freehold to you until the final instalment is paid: in the meantime, you will still be responsible for the ground rent. Default in paying the instalments may result in your losing any or all of the instalments previously paid.

Buying our freehold interest – Flats

It is a legal minefield to sell the freehold interest of an individual flat. Problems arise because it is difficult to create a legal situation where the owner of the flat with the flying freehold and the subsequent purchasers continue to be bound by positive covenants to contribute to the upkeep and running of the block. Accordingly, we are prepared to sell the freehold only of a block which is self contained with regard to the lease covenants. This may comprise a block of only 2 units in the case of maisonettes, but equally it could comprise, say, 4 blocks each of 20 units which are physically separate but which may be legally bound by cross covenants on a larger estate.

If you are interested in buying the freehold to your block, please write to us requesting a quote. The process of buying and method of payment are the same as set out above. In terms of who gets to buy if there are competing bids, our attitude would be basically first come, first served: whoever accepts our quote first will have first run at the transaction. Similarly, we are prepared to sell to any individual (tenant or non tenant) or any grouping of individuals; this may involve your liaising with other like­-minded tenants.

However, we are bound by Section 5 of The Landlord and Tenant Act 1987. This means that, after we have tied up the terms of a deal for us to sell you the freehold, we are then required to offer all the qualifying tenants the same deal i.e. they have a right of pre-emption on identical terms. They have 2 months in which to accept, subject to stringent conditions e.g. a majority has to accept. If a majority of qualifying tenants does accept, we have no option but to sell to the tenants; in those circumstances, we will refund 100% of any purchase moneys we have already received from you. If, as usually happens, the qualifying tenants do not exercise their right of pre-emption, we can draw up the documentation with a view to completing our sale to you.

An alternative to buying the freehold of your block is buying an extension to the number of years the lease to your individual flat has left to run: for more details, please see Flats – extension to the term of the lease.

Please contact the sales team for flat sales:

sales@compton.group