A green convertible and a grey car are parked in front of city buildings. Birds fly across the scene. Text reads, "From city to country, City flats and apartments."
Text reads: "From city to country. City flats and apartments." Black birds fly across a collage featuring cars, a building facade with columns, and outlines of large keys against a green background.

City flats and apartments

If you are seeking high-end amenities, beautiful finishings and extensive views of London from spacious balconies, luxury city flats/apartments are the perfect home choice for you. For homeowners, they fulfil the desire to maintain a higher quality of life, offer an array of amenities (from fitness centres to housekeeping services), provide privacy and security and are typically located in central or well-connected areas.

It should be noted that the vast majority of flats and apartments in the UK are leasehold properties. For the following quirks, we are assuming the property is a leasehold.

Thinking of purchasing a city flat or apartment?

Here are the quirks to be aware of:

Alterations

To undertake alterations you must ensure you have complied with all the terms in your lease. You need to obtain all the necessary consents from the landlord pursuant to the lease as well as all necessary statutory consents such as planning permission – and if applicable, listed building consent. There may also be consent required pursuant to an estate management scheme if you live on an estate and in a building where this applies. It is popular to want to install wooden floors at flats, but the lease may not permit it and if there are wooden floors already they may be in breach of the lease so it is important to seek professional advice.

If you are an animal lover, it may surprise you to note that some leases will not allow leaseholders to keep pets in the home. To keep a pet consent from the landlord is usually required and revocable, should the animal cause a nuisance or annoyance to other tenants in the building. If you have a pet it needs to be a quiet one!

Long leaseholders have the option to claim a lease extension of their lease by 90 years if they have owned it for 2 years, which prevents the lease from becoming too short to obtain a mortgage. The lease extension will also reduce any ground rent payable to a peppercorn and again a premium is payable for buying out the ground rent. However, there will be a premium payable for this extension.

Have you considered assignment? Many leases will require the landlord’s consent to assign them, this provision is there so that the landlord has the opportunity to check that the incoming tenant is reputable and can afford the outgoings and service charges at the flat as they will want to be sure that there is no shortfall.

Landlords often ask for service charge deposits as a condition of giving consent to the assignment where the leaseholder is based overseas.

If you are buying to enjoy yourself, then buying in your own name rather than a company is most sensible. Ownership through a company is likely to result in annual tax on enveloped dwellings (ATED) charge, and possible benefit-in-kind issues if you are also a director of the company. Plus, with no commercial use, there will be a flat rate SDLT charge of 17% (plus non-resident SDLT (NRSDLT) at 2%) on the purchase. If you are moving to the UK you may also be able to claim back the 2% NRSDLT.

If you are buying to let-out on commercial terms to third parties and never use yourself (or by your immediate family), then owning through a company will provide numerous benefits. Examples of which include limited liability, ATED filings (but no liability), corporation tax on the rental profits, a more favourable regime for deducting interest expenses that personal ownership, and an ability to retain income in the company so that tax on distribution may be deferred.

There are collective enfranchisement opportunities available for residential leaseholders; a process that allows qualifying leaseholders to purchase the freehold of the building in which they live. Enfranchisement is a complex, multi-party process which can be a minefield for the unwary but, with the right advice, it can offer enormous opportunities for leaseholders.

If you want to buy a bit of extra space from the landlord, for example a section of the ‘common parts’ outside your flat that only you use, the option could be there! However, the landlord may (if the building fulfils the qualifying criteria) have to first offer it to the other tenants in the building through a process under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987.

More than 50% of the other long leaseholders would have to join together to accept the offer which often doesn’t happen particularly if that space serves no purpose to them.

Download our full report to learn more or contact our team today to help you navigate your own home buying journey.

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