Ground Rent demand

[thecremeegg]

So my SO and I purchased a leasehold flat in 2013 and have since then been paying the service charge that we assumed contained the ground rent as well.

Fast forward to today and we have received a letter from the leaseholder's solicitors stating we owe them £750 in rent plus interest that comes to £1100 or so.

We've never had a demand for ground rent before, if we had we'd have paid it. They also said in the letter that they are following up from a letter send on Jan 20th - never had that either.

Now I'm "happy" to pay the rent, but not the interest as we've never been asked for the rent before, why has it taken nearly 4 years to ask us and then add interest?

Can anyone savvy advise on if we have any grounds to not pay the interest on this?

Thanks

[thecremeegg]

That's interesting to know, thanks. I'll call the solicitors that sent the letter tomorrow and see what they say about that.

[thecremeegg]

As an update, they have supposedly been writing to us however with the incorrect house number as that's what's on the land registry.
Seems that when the house was registered it was put as number 16 which is not us!

Rather worrying that people may have been writing to us at that address for years about important info but that's a side point.

They've agreed to not charge the interest or fees, just the (exorbitant!) ground rent fees, so that's a plus.

Need to work out how to update the land registry now!

[thecremeegg]

Saleen836 said:

So how did they suddenly get the correct address to write to you this time...is what I would be asking!

Well apparently we're registered at number 16 and number 36 and they were writing to number 16 the whole time.
How true that is I don't know, not sure how I can see the land registry details?

[thecremeegg]

Cyberprog said:

Your property was probably "Plot" 16 Happens a lot I think.

Interesting, could be that I guess. Just trying to get it sorted at the moment, it's hard work for something so simple.

[thecremeegg]

SystemParanoia said:

I'll stick with my original thoughts of

Leasehold = Avoid like the plague!

I wish I could afford a house but a flat is my limit!