Lease Holders.

Sorry, just letting off steam.

I have owned The FreeHold of a four storie block of very nice flats in Plymouth for nearly fifty years now.  They could only be sold Lease Hold.  The Ground Rent in total is 250 Pounds a year and The Lease is excellent, in which it protects us all.

However, it has been a total pain in the arse for most of that time, although the problems come and go.

It has just kicked off again, albeit the same old same old.  There is always one in any decade that thinks I have just come up The Clyde on a water biscuit.  This one is the ex wife of the last dickhead that I got the better of ten years ago.  I think she’s hoping that I have gone a bit doo lally in the last ten years.  No chance.

I am supposed to pay for everything outside of the building, including the Communal Road, Gardens and Pavement, despite what The Lease says.  Although what makes them think my excellent solicitor would have lumped that on me on 250 Pounds a year remains a mystery.  This is a Private Terrace, by the way.

I do have a very good Managing Agent, again.  The Leasholders got rid of the last one, at which point everything  descended into chaos during which nothing was done, and least of all was my Ground Rent paid.  Not that this was important.  I was never going to get rich on 250 Pounds a year

But it ain’t happening again.  I have a responsibility to these people whether they like it or not.  Noblesse Oblige, or some such nonsense, and I have that in spades, being a hard core Celt.  Celts never did concern themselves much with money.  It’s The Land that is the thing.

The problem seems to be that none of them actually read The Lease before they sign it.  Or perhaps they don’t understand half decent English.  But I understand what “Easement” means, even if they don’t.  It’s in The Dictionary.

Or mayhap they resent some person owning the land on which they live.  So why buy a Lease in the first place when there was no other way in which to buy one of these really lovely flats?

The original Lease was for 132 years, my solicitor knowing what he was doing, with No Increase on Ground Rent during that time.  So as you can all see I am never personally going to benefit from that.  And God knows how many Great Greats I will have when The Leases do finally run out.  Somedebody is going to have some fun with that.

But for a while Eleanor Mitchell has owned one small parcel of land of which she is very proud.  An East End Cockney, Irish, Welsh Celt, and they don’t come tougher than that.