Homes purchased through a lease, also called leasehold properties, are a type of ownership that is unique to England and Wales. Also, despite sometime being tricky to explore, they are extremely common. What many individuals forget is that they are purchasing the temporary right to utilize the property; it is outright ownership like a freehold. So how would they work?

How long is the lease?

Leaseholds used to begin at between 90 and 125 years long, yet nowadays can begin at 999 years. And because leases countdown in length as the years passes by, quite a few older leasehold properties come up for sale with short leases. These can be problematical if you're getting one with a mortgage.

• Service charges:

Whether a leasehold property is one of numerous inside a block or only a handful inside a converted house, there will be a freeholder who owns the entire building including the common areas, for example, the hallway.

They will charge you a yearly or month to month expense to keep up and repair these common areas, as a rule through a management company. These service charges usually incorporate both the ground rent and the cost of insuring the building.

• Leasehold houses:

Some new-build houses are sold via leases as opposed to as freehold ones and, as well as having more complicated service charges and ground rent, require more classy mortgages.

• Ground rent:

As a rule this is a nominal sum, reflecting how you are a "tenant" paying rent to lease your home inside the building. The ground lease clauses inside a lease ought to be checked deliberately; it's one of the regions where some corrupt freeholders/landowners attempt and profit from leaseholders.

• Sinking funds:

To plan for when costly things inside a block of flats, for example, the rooftop or a swimming pool require real works, proprietors ask leaseholders contribute consistently to a hold or "sinking" fund to cover such future costs.

• Share of the freehold:

In 2004 a law was introduced that empowered leaseholders with club together, if there are sufficient of them, and purchase the freehold off the landowner and claim an offer of it. This can make the properties more important and empowered leaseholders to select their own management company or manage the buildings themselves.

• Management:

A management company or operator is the organization appointed and paid for by the freeholder to run, repair and keep up a property. The leaseholders share the cost of this via the yearly or month to month service charge.

How to buy:

When you purchase a leasehold property, you are paying to move the rent into your name, and the freeholder/proprietor should be recounted the change. The first rent continues the same and incorporates the name/s of the first renters, which confuses some people. In any case, your solicitor will notify the Land Registry that you now own the lease.