Buying the freehold will not change the charges for maintenance and management.
What will change is that any ground rents will be paid to the new freeholder (the management company) which will benefit the flat owners. And as far as I am aware the freeholder could agree to write new longer leases and/or change the ground rent.
You will incur some legal costs, particularly if you want to change the leases. You need to make sure that you get the ducks in a row in terms of ensuring that the management company go through the right processes to buy the lease - eg:
- do all flats need to agree for it to happen or majority vote,
- does the management company have the cash in its reserves to buy the freehold
- what happens if one of the flat owners does not want to play ball
- etc etc
Final point - the current freeholder may simply want to sell his investment and (I think) is legally obliged to offer to the existing leaseholders first.
Check the lease to ensure that there are no hidden pitfalls - eg: the freeholder may have an obligation to repair certain aspects of the structure and wants to offload the risk or responsibility.
|
