Home Ownership
Hackney Homes' Leasehold and Right to Buy Services can help if you are a leaseholder, freeholder or tenant interested in buying your Council-owned home. Leasehold and Right to Buy Services are responsible for:
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Managing the Right to Buy scheme. If you are a secure Council tenant and would like to know more about buying the home you live in then please visit the Right to Buy pages.
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Issuing estimated and actual service charge and major works invoices.
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Consulting with leaseholders concerning forthcoming major works.
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Calculating and collecting major works and annual service charges.
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Making payment arrangements, providing advice to leaseholders and freeholders experiencing difficulties paying.
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Dealing with a range of queries, including sub-letting and resales.
Leaseholders are home-owners who have a long-term lease that will expire on a certain date. Most leasehold properties are flats or maisonettes. The maximum length of a lease is 125 years and although many properties have fewer years remaining, permission can be granted to extend a lease. The Council remains the freeholder of the overall building and therefore the landlord of the leaseholder. Leaseholders are responsible for paying a proportion of all services to the block or/and estate, repairs, improvements, maintenance, neighbourhood management fee, insurance and administration charge.
Freeholders are home owners with freehold in perpetuity. This means there is no limit on the length of time they own the property. The home owner has the freehold, not the Council. However, the Council continues to provide services to freehold properties on estates under the terms of transfer deed. Those freeholders pay for services to the estate including routine estate repairs and maintenance and administration costs. Freeholders whose properties are not on an estate do not have to pay service charges.
All freeholders are responsible for maintaining the insides and outsides of their homes, together with any garden space that was including in the purchase.