[Vwoolf] The Ramsays in Skye - owning or renting?

[Jeremy Hawthorn]

Mark -

You are right to distinguish England (and Wales) from Scotland. A quick 
Google confirms that "When buying a residential property in Scotland, 
there is no freehold and leasehold distinction. Generally, what you buy 
in Scotland is 100% yours and you can say everything is 'freehold' in 
Scotland. In Scotland, once you buy a property, you can usually give a 
tenancy to someone else so they can occupy it for a rent." So that 
Leslie Stephen (with a holiday house in England) and Mr Ramsay (with one 
in Scotland) are in quite different situations.

When I bought a unit in a block of flats (apartments) in England in the 
early 1970s a lawyer told me that one should never buy a unit in a block 
freehold, as if you do you (or your neighbours) will end with something 
called floating freehold, which makes it very difficult to stop owners 
doing anti-social things. In such situations leasehold is (I was told) a 
form of protection, as the owner of the property (the leaser) retains 
certain rights that can prevent lessees doing mad and objectionable 
things with and in their flats. Why (or if) this is not the case in 
Scotland, I know not.

Of course, you should also check how many years your lease has to run . . .

One thing I have learned re owning a flat / apartment is this. In every 
block of flats (as, a colleague once told me, in every English 
Department) there is at least one mad person. Dealing with him or her is 
easier and cheaper if there are 150 units than if there are 15.

And while we are on the subject, a bit of sound advice is: never buy a 
property with a flat roof. You need the law of gravity on your side when 
it rains.

Jeremy H

On 15.07.2020 15:44, Mark Hussey via Vwoolf wrote:
>
> A friend in London once explained to me what a “leasehold” meant—but 
> I’ve forgotten the details. It seems peculiar to the UK (or perhaps 
> just England?), where you “own” a flat in a building but you still 
> have to pay some feudal lord in (say) Cornwall) a nominal rent for the 
> land on which the building in which your flat is sits.  Is that right? 😉
>

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