This really long post is well worth a read. It has been taken from our FaceBook group with the author’s permission.
It is both a personal journey of discovery and very informative for those new to the estate rent charge:
Some new-build estates (or newly built) will have ‘estate rentcharges’, some won’t. In my area (North East) every single new-build developer is doing them, and have been for the best part of 10+ years now.
It’s a case of something which used to have some small value in society, but now has been exploited and bastardised as a ‘legal loophole’. Traditional ‘rentcharges’, or ‘chief rents’, used to apply to some buildings (e.g. terraced houses), but they were very small, nominal charges, mostly very affordable. You could also ‘redeem’ them (get rid of them once and for all for your property) by paying a larger fee, agreed between you and the ‘rentowner’. Traditional ‘rentcharges’ were essentially banned in 1977 (Rentcharges Act 1977), and all traditional ‘rentcharges’ have to end by approx. 2035.
BUT, in 1977 they didn’t ban a different type of rentcharge called an ‘estate rentcharge’. Most of these new-build or newish houses, whether leasehold or freehold, are essentially classed as houses on a private estate, e.g. with the ‘freehold’ houses (or ‘fleecehold’) you own the house, you own the land the house is built upon, but you are still liable to pay an annual rent to the ‘rentowner’ for your house being built on a private estate, come what may.
Continue reading “A Rent Charge Victim’s View”
