Imagine buying a home thinking you own it free and clear, but then you realize there’s a small ground rent charge. The amount is tiny, but it’s still annoying to have to pay it.

Would you keep paying it, or would you try to find a way to buy the land?

In this story, one homeowner is in this situation, and the most annoying part is mailing the checks. After some investigating, he discovers a loophole that works to his advantage.

Keep reading for all the details.

Ground Rent Charge

I bought a house in Manchester UK, which I though was freehold, but turned out to have an ancient ground rent (sort of like a leasehold). This ground rent was the grand sum of 4 GBP per year.

For the first few years I received a hand typed bill once per year as the ground rent was owned by an elderly lady, presumably the ground rent was an old family asset.

I paid the bill promptly by cheque, after all it was only 4 GBP.

But things changed.

Now I think the elderly lady died because for a while the charge was collected by the legal company in charge of her estate.

However, the ground rent was then sold to a large company who’s primary business was debt collection and who were aggressive about collecting the rent quarterly.

Still that was not really a problem, but I was annoyed enough at having to send 4 cheques for 1.50 GBP a year to investigate further, with a view to purchasing the whole thing myself.

Here’s what OP learned…

I found out that firstly that all these ancient ground rents would be annulled in 2020, or somewhere around then, so there wasn’t actually much to pay if I wanted to purchase the whole thing, I think it was about 80 GBP.

I also found out that under the ancient law pertaining to these ground rents that I had to pay the fee or give them produce from the land to the value of the fee (I told you it was ancient).

Additionally, the ground rent holder had to collect the rent, that is at the door in person!

He offered tomatoes.

So next time the new company sent me the vaguely threatening bill. I simply sent them a letter offering produce from my garden to the value of the fee (I had some nice tomatoes at the time, so offered them those) and left it to them to decide when they wished to collect.

Of course the company never came to collect any tomatoes and tried to get me to sent the money to them and threatened legal action etc.

However, once I sent another letter to their legal guy, pointing him to the law on the matter, I then received a one-off offer to buy the entire ground rent for 25 GBP. which I did.

A good result as I was completely happy with buying at the market price of 80 GBP!

I love that he offered them tomatoes and that they responded by giving him a great deal on the land.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person has a suggestion.

Another person shares their situation.

What if you don’t have a horse? LOL

This person’s parents weren’t as lucky.

Investigating can really pay off!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.