What is FREEHOLD in Real Estate?

Freehold is the ownership of real property, being land and all immovable structures attached to such land. This is opposed to a leasehold in which the property reverts to the owner of the land after the lease period has expired.

Owning a freehold means owning the building and the land it stands on outright, in perpetuity. It is your name in the land registry as “freeholder”, owning the “title absolute”. Freehold is pretty much always the preferred option: you can’t really go wrong with it.

A FREEHOLD estate could be transferable to the owner’s “heirs and assigns”; also known in some parlance as ‘OMONILES’(successors by inheritance or purchase; [including gift], respectively), in which case it was a “fee simple” estate.

For an estate to be a freehold it must possess two qualities: immobility (property must be land or some interest issuing out of or annexed to land); and ownership of it must be of an indeterminate duration. If the time of ownership can be fixed and determined, then it cannot be a freehold.

In FREEHOLD:
�• You won’t have to pay annual ground rent

�• You don’t have a freeholder either failing to maintain the building, or charging huge amounts for it

�• You have responsibility for maintaining the fabric of the building – the roof and the outside walls

�• Whole houses are normally sold freehold.

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