UKC

Seeing the thread about the aggressive bill chasers got me thinking about ground rents. Not being British, or even living in the uk, ground rents are pretty much a near non existent thing here, Oirland, that occasionally pops up in the media once in a blue moon.

They strike me as a pretty antiquated system that doesn't really have any place in modern society. If i'm being really truthful continue to pay an income to old vested interests which probably don't deserve it. (Which i might add is not something i'd be likely to say normally as I'm defo not a screaming lefty who believes in the downtrodden underclass, etc.)

So would someone care to explain them to me? And do they actually really serve a purpose in modern society? Other than giving a small elite an additional income which is unearned.

In reply to Frank4short:

Ground rent usually occurs when the property is the subject of a lease - ie there's a finite time on residency, as opposed to freehold when the owner really does own the land. (Normally this tends to be 999 years, and usually only applies to flats, but I have seen the odd house that's leasehold)

In reply to Frank4short:


Surely, that statement could be applied to most stock traders, landlords and estate agents?

In reply to EeeByGum:
I live in a first floor flat and have a leasehold on it, as does everyone else on their flats within the building. If I had a freehold then I would own the building structure and the land of the footprint of my flat. Obviously we couldn't all have freeholds else the same plots of land would be owned 4 times (4 storey building).
So we have a leasehold and own everything within our flats (from the plasterboard in I believe). We have a property management company to act as landlord who own the building and the land. We pay them land rent and the much hated property management fee for hallway lights, cleaning and maintenance.

We were offered to club together and buy the freehold on the land, but it would've taken a while to pay back and organising it between 12 families would have been a nightmare.

In reply to Gordonbp:

We had to pay ground rent on our last house. Lease was 999yrs and the council owned the freehold. I think it was once a council house.

The ground rent was £1 per year.