[Vwoolf] The Ramsays in Skye - owning or renting?
Jeremy Hawthorn
jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no
Wed Jul 15 10:19:45 EDT 2020
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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