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Contact Freehold Sale to provide the address of the freehold ground rents and how many leases there are. If possible, tell us how many years remain on each lease and the ground rents payable. Don’t worry if you do not have this information available as we should be able to obtain copies of each registered lease.
A valuation specialist will carry out an appraisal of your ground rents to determine their market value. You’ll then receive a phone call and a formal letter with our cash offer to purchase your ground rents. As our purchase offers are valid for 14-days, you’ll have some time to consider whether you’d like to proceed.
If your property and leaseholders qualify, we’ll serve Section 5A Notices on your behalf to offer leaseholders the Right of First Refusal to purchase the ground rents. Our proficient service is free when you sell to us, saving you both legal costs and time, while ensuring that you’re fully compliant with your legal obligations.
If leaseholders accept the Right of First Refusal, we’ll work with your solicitor to progress the sale on your behalf until the disposal of your ground rents reaches completion. If they do not accept, we’ll continue to progress the sale as your ground rent buyers. On completion, you will receive the funds in full, via your solicitor.
We buy residential freehold ground rent portfolios consisting of purpose-built blocks of flats or converted buildings of all sizes across England and Wales. These can include long and short lease terms, peppercorn or modern ground rents but we will not buy and strongly disagree with ground rents with onerous lease terms. We also do not buy ground rents for houses.
As the leading ground rent buyers in the industry, we’re experts in buying ground rents with existing problems. This can include ground rent and building’s insurance arrears, maintenance issues and leaseholder disputes. So, you can rest assured that you can dispose of your ground rents easily and still achieve the market value.
With Freehold Sale, it’s possible to sell ground rents in just four to six weeks from receipt of the sale contract from your solicitor. However, if your leaseholders qualify for the Right of First Refusal, the sale process may be extended by up to five months. This is because Landlord and Tenant law dictates that you must allow this time for leaseholders to accept the offer to buy the ground rents before another party.
If you authorise us to act on your behalf, we’ll prepare and serve the Section 5 Right of First Refusal Notices to your leaseholders (qualifying tenants) within just 24-hours. Therefore, you’ll be able to get this process underway quickly and complete the sale of your ground rents sooner. Better yet, this professional service is provided at no cost for freeholders selling their ground rents with Freehold Sale.
We’re the experts in the industry, trusted by individuals and companies to deliver hassle-free disposals of ground rent portfolios. And no matter the reason for selling ground rents, we provide market-rate offers together with a full service, ‘one-stop shop’ ground rent buying solution. So, it couldn’t be easier to sell ground rents with Freehold Sale.
Plus, our highly knowledgeable team will provide you with specialist advice and support throughout the entire ground rent sale process to ensure that your mind is kept at ease. Our aim is to provide a simple way to sell ground rents, that’s reliable, efficient and saves our customers time, money and stress. Contact us today to see how we can assist you with your ground rent disposal.
It’s fast and simple to sell ground rents when you choose the right ground rent buyer
Call us on 01245 227 920 or complete the form below and we’ll contact you at the earliest opportunity.
There are several ways to obtain a ground rent valuation when you wish to sell the interest. The simplest of these, is by contacting Freehold Sale and requesting a free appraisal of your ground rents. Our specialist valuers will then carry out an assessment in order to provide you with a market value, should you wish to sell. We’ll typically respond to valuation requests in under 24-hours, so you won’t have to wait long to find out how much your ground rents are worth. Plus, if your ground rents are of interest to us, we’ll make you a purchase offer to take the ground rents off your hands.
To get an instant estimation of how much your ground rents are worth, use our free, online ground rent valuation calculator. All you need to do is enter the terms for each lease and our calculator will provide you with the approximate value of your ground rents. It’s important to remember that results from this ground rent calculator are for guide purposes only. Therefore, they cannot be relied upon in a tribunal or court proceedings.
Mr Malek - South East
Mr Malek contacted Freehold Sale to discuss selling the freehold to two blocks of flats with ground rents to 12 individual units. We carried out an appraisal of the freehold interest to determine the market value and proceeded to make Mr Malek a competitive offer to purchase. As with most of our clients, Mr Malek had been researching other freehold buying companies to obtain the best price for his freehold interest.
On receiving our offer, Mr Malek informed us that one of our well-known competitors in the industry had made him an offer which was significantly larger than ours. Regrettably, we were all too familiar with this company’s practices having had many clients inform us of their terrible experience. We advised Mr Malek to approach this company with caution as they are renowned for making attractively high offers and then withdrawing from the transaction before reaching exchange of contracts.
Unfortunately, Mr Malek decided to proceed with the offer from our competitor freehold buyer, only to be let down several weeks after. During this time, Mr Malek had paid a significant sum of money for a solicitor to serve the Section 5 Right of First Refusal Notices to his qualifying tenants. As Mr Malek was still keen to sell the freehold interest, he contacted Freehold Sale again to accept our initial purchase offer.
We were more than happy to help Mr Malek, however, as our offer was lower than the purchase price that was stated in the distributed Right of First Refusal Notices, new notices would have to be served to the qualifying tenants. Fortunately, we provide this service to all of our clients at no cost, so Mr Malek didn’t incur any further expenses. However, we do advise our clients that in some circumstances they may not be able to re-issue the Section 5 Notices within 12 months of issuing the original Notices.
Therefore, while obtaining the best sale price is the ultimate aim for most people, it is always advisable to carefully select a freehold buyer that you can trust. Reading company reviews and ensuring that they have a great reputation with their customers can be a good indication of this. Otherwise, you could end up out of pocket and stuck with owning your freehold ground rents and managing all the responsibilities that come with it for a further 12 months.
Mr Bolton - Midlands
Mr Bolton approached Freehold Sale looking to sell his freehold ground rents quickly. He had inherited the property (a house conversion containing three flats with ground rental income) just one year previously. The property was not in a good state of repair and with troublesome tenants to contend with, Mr Bolton had reached the end of his tether with being a landlord and wanted to get out as soon as possible.
Mr Bolton was very honest with the problems he was experiencing with his freehold property. One of the main issues was that his leaseholders were failing to pay their ground rent and service charges, which meant that he couldn’t arrange the necessary repairs and maintenance for the property. When Mr Bolton inherited the property, the leaseholders were already in arrears and this had continued to increase over the past year.
Consequently, many freehold buyers refused to make Mr Bolton an offer for his freehold ground rents, which left him extremely concerned that he would not be able to sell the freehold at all. At Freehold Sale however, we’re experienced in buying freehold properties with existing problems and arrears, so we were happy to help Mr Bolton with transfer of his freehold interest.
Ultimately, Mr Bolton wanted to achieve a quick sale of the freehold without losing too much money on the sale price as a result. At Freehold Sale, we always offer a competitive price to buy a freehold based on the market value of the property. This means that we do not offer a lower purchase price in return for a quick sale. After carrying out a valuation of Mr Bolton’s freehold ground rents, we provided him with an offer to purchase.
As Freehold Sale specialise in helping freeholders to sell their freeholds quickly, we were confident that we could complete the transaction in four – six weeks. Mr Bolton was extremely pleased with this fact in addition to the purchase offer, and so instructed us to proceed with the freehold transfer. After serving the Right of First Refusal Notices to the qualifying tenants on Mr Bolton’s behalf at no cost to him, we were able to complete the sales transaction in just four weeks.
At present, flats in England and Wales are typically sold as leasehold. This gives flat owners the right to occupy the flat for a set number of years, usually 99. And at the end of the lease term, the flat will return to the freeholder. As a result, this type of property ownership can be regarded simply as a form of long tenancy.
However, it is widely agreed that leasehold ownership of flats is the most effective way to ensure that a building with multiple residents is adequately maintained. Consequently, most lenders will not offer mortgages on flats unless they are sold as leasehold. This way, they can ensure that their investment is suitably protected.
In order for a flat to be sold as leasehold, a lease document must be created to act as a contract between the freeholder and leaseholder. The lease will set out the term of the contract and the rights and responsibilities of both parties. This can include the payment and collection of ground rent, service charges and insurances together with repair and maintenance obligations.
It is essential that lease terms are fair for leaseholders as well as freeholders, particularly in relation to ground rent and other charges. Exploiting leaseholders for profit, is simply unfair, wrong and can be incredibly detrimental to homeowners, as we’ve seen from the recent ground rent scandal. Therefore, it is advisable to seek assistance from an industry professional to ensure that leases are fair but also profitable.
As a ground rent investor with decades of experience in the freehold industry, we can provide expert assistance to developers building flats. First and foremost, using our wealth of knowledge, we can help you to create fair and profitable lease terms. This will ensure that your residential development’s freehold is attractive to ground rent investors. As a result, you will likely generate reliable returns from your very saleable investment.
Our aim is to make selling a freehold fast and simple for our customers and we can do this because we are expert freehold buyers, with a wealth of experience.