Leasehold languor & divine intervention

• Leasehold languor: dissatisfaction with the leasehold market.
• Law Commission to the rescue: reviewing the law of leasehold enfranchisement.
• Balance and fairness: complex valuations.
• Freeing flat owners: collective right to buy?

Property surrounding many of the cathedrals in England and Wales have ‘another worldliness’ which can be captivating, although property buyers in such hallowed places might need divine intervention to help them remain phlegmatic about some of the conveyancing idiosyncrasies they could encounter. Many such properties are leasehold and some of relatively short duration. The ground rent in some has some old fashioned conditions, remarks Paul Cadge, partner in residential sales at the Salisbury branch of Myddleton and Major, who explains that the Church hangs onto rack rentals, which represent the full open market value of a holding.

God forbid that any unsavoury types should aspire to acquire property in such venerable places, but the system checks them out. For example, potential buyers of property in Salisbury