When Ian and Vicky Thomson bought their new Taylor Wimpey home in St Helens, Merseyside, in December 2011 for £235,000 the spacious four-bedroom house was on a 250-year lease. The saleswoman offered them the chance to buy the freehold for another £5,900, but given the length of the lease, the couple did not think the extra expense worth it — especially since they were told the offer would remain open for several years while the development was completed. “We had the money to buy the freehold but spent it on extras in the house, such as upgraded tiling, a higher-spec kitchen, extra downlights and so on,” said Ian Thomson, 56, who is the executive director of a local housing association. “We were told there was
An estimated 100,000 UK homeowners have unknowingly bought houses from firms such as Taylor Wimpey that have toxic "doubling leases" under which ground rents double 1990s. Thus a ground rent set at, say, £295 a year would reach £9,440 a year in 50 years. The "toxic leases" threaten to make houses impossible to mortgage or sell. The practice is being likened to the misselling of endowment policies in the 1980s and every 10 years and the PPI scandal in the 2000s.