What’s the policy of the other housebuilders?
Yet another plc housebuilder has decided that selling leasehold houses is bad idea: Bovis.
It joins Taylor Wimpey in pulling out of this game. Gleeson Homes, of course, never got involved:
What is the difference between Freehold and Leasehold?
It may seem like technical legal language, but there are few things more important about your home than whether it is freehold or leasehold. In short it’s the difference between you, or someone else, owning the land your home is built on.
Gleeson Homes says: “We don’t agree with selling homes as leasehold and all homes on Gleeson’s developments are freehold [except where land is owned by councils].”
Under the slogans “You own the land” and “No ground rent to pay”, Bovis now announces “Our houses are freehold”.
What’s the policy of the other housebuilders?
We know Persimmon is grudgingly selling freehold houses even on sites where it has already chanced its arm selling leasehold ones, such as The Village in Aveley, Essex, among many.
We are aware of Bloor Homes not doing much of this nonsense, and coming up with very flimsy excuses when it does.
Nationwide bans mortgages on doubling ground rent properties
But what about Barratt, Redrow, Galliford Try, Morris Homes, Miller Developments, Miller Homes, Miller Developments and the rest? Might as well get their public policies out in the open here.
The question for Bovis is whether it is levying an array of management and other charges at sites. Councils and developers collude in dumping a raft of charges on private estates, now being called “fleecehold”, by those affected.
Bovis’s Facebook page entry carries on:
“Here at Bovis Homes it is our standard policy* to sell all of our new houses on a freehold basis.
“When you purchase a freehold house, you own the land on which it is built and you have no ground rent to pay.
“If you have any questions please contact the Sales team at the location of your choice.
“Talk to them today to find out how much more you get with Bovis Homes. Hear about the special features we include in the price and the very latest releases at your location.
“*In very rare circumstances we may need to sell houses leasehold due to local factors such as building on a consortium site where conditions have been put in place as part of the land purchase, or through acquiring sites with existing leasehold arrangements in place. Coach houses and apartments may be leasehold. There may be circumstances which garages may be leasehold.”
What’s the policy of the other housebuilders?
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Related posts:
Surge in new-build leasehold houses with £1.9 billion sold last year
Farewell to newbuild leasehold houses?
Persimmon sold leasehold houses for £50,000 more than same-size freehold houses at Harrow View West
Gleeson won’t sell leasehold houses, but freehold ones come with ‘fleasehold’ covenants, says Justin Madders
Leasehold houses have been sold for more than freehold ones, reports Telegraph
Business Insider reports how easily developers get round ‘right of first refusal’
Interesting article (letter?) in the Guardian titled “Leaseholding as the utopian alternative”. Caught my eye anyway…
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/16/leaseholding-as-the-utopian-alternative
I wrote back:-
“I write in response to Jane Blackburn’s letter, ‘Leaseholding as the utopian alternative’, 17 August. Ms Blackburn paints an aspirational picture describing Cannock Mill Cohousing Colchester taking “matters into their own hands to get the retirement lifestyle they want”.
My grizzle is this statement: “Responsible property management is being effectively disallowed – the unintended consequence of well-meant but under-informed legislation.”
CMCC’s website suggests they aren’t yet fully operational? A dream does not utopia make. Let alone a defence for leasehold. Even if it proves possible to run a contented, limited by guarantee, non-profit company with 22 directors, this isn’t the average leaseholder experience. Far from it. Nor is the average leaseholder a member, let alone director, of their freeholder.
CMCC is the opposite to a defence of leasehold. It’s a defence for common ownership for leaseholders, i.e. commonhold. Under commonhold each unit is guaranteed in status, not liable to be voted out of a directorship. CMCC’s annual report is revealing: “…precluding a leaseholder from purchasing the freehold of their property”. An individual leaseholder must not buy their own freehold in Utopia?
Without knowing real world service charges, management fees, exit fees and the whole panopoly of common leasehold experience, it is hard to judge one as yet tender utopian dream.
Only time will tell if CMCC realises utopia at the coalface. Even then it is not leasehold as most people know it, nor therefore a justification for leasehold. Commonhold would give all leaseholders a chance of their own self-managed utopia.”
One major problem facing Leaseholders is the matter of when the Developer original Freeholder sells the site to a 3rd party within the alloted time of the Planning Application i.e Plans submitted 2003 & agreed woth an end date 2010. However in say 2009 the site is flogged off. This then breaks the contract between the council & the Developer. What may have been agreed in the matter of Rd Adoption goes straight out of the window. So is it possible to include a safety net to cover this type of situation? The same could be argued for pumping stations (sewage/water) – more needs to be done.