If you own the Freehold you own the property and the land on which it is built.

The benefits of buying a freehold property are:

Leasehold

Leasehold is essentially a system of tenure based on a feudal hierarchy where the Lord of the Land (the landlord) allowed peasants to live on his land and work for the privilege.

England is one of the few countries to have this archaic system.

The Law Society published an interesting article on this;

To quote Sajid Javid: ’these practices are practically feudal’.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill 2024

On reading the proposed bill and hearing comments from the likes of Barry Gardiner this bill will do very little to alter the feudal landscape for leaseholders.

Make no mistake his bill will not provide any assurances for leaseholders and will certainly not improve their plight at the hands of speculative landlords and inept housing associations.

Barry Gardiner discusses the failings of the proposed bill as well as explaining many of the problems associated with leasehold in the video below.

He has also produced a documentary which captures many of the problems associated with leasehold here

Commonhold

There is a current strong movement underway to abolish leasehold and replace it with 'commonhold' making it easier for leaseholders to take control over their services. It is being led by the current minister Michael Gove.

A concise description of commonhold and how you can become part of it can be found here;

Leasehold ownership of a flat or house is simply a long tenancy. the right to occupation and use of the flat or house for a long period – the ‘term’ of the lease.

This will usually be for 99 or 125 years and can be up to 999 years on new builds. The flat or house can be bought and sold during that term.

The leasehold ownership of a flat usually relates to everything within the four walls of the flat, including floorboards and plaster to walls and ceiling, but does not usually include the external or structural walls. The structure and common parts of the building and the land it stands on are usually owned by the freeholder, who is also the landlord.

Service Charges

The freeholder is responsible for the maintenance and repair of the building. The costs for doing so are recoverable through the service charges and billed to the leaseholders. A leasehold ownership of a house usually relates to the whole building both internal and external and possibly a garden and driveway. Typically a leaseholder of a house would be responsible for the repair and maintenance of the whole building

The landlord can be a person or a company, including a local authority or a housing association.

Matt Allwright suggests requesting invoices that underly service charges.

This is an example of what was produced by Michael Long to define a single invoice for one piece of repair work to Lambert Court requested under the 'statutory' process.