Ground Rent Arrears
Whilst you can sell your ground rents with arrears it is always a good idea to try to recover as much as possible before commencing with the sale particularly if the arrears are substantial and go back further than 6 years.
You may find a buyer that is prepared to pay you a sum for the arrears but it is unlikely that you will get hem to give you 100% of the arrears. Whatever happens you will not get them to pay you for arrears that stretch back further that 6 years as that is beyond the statute of limitations.
Recovering Ground Rent
Ideally you should try to recover these yourself before you complete the sale. Generally speaking a buyer will pay you an agreed sum for the arrears but this depends on the amount that is owed. Unless your lessee has an extremely good reason they should not withhold ground rent payments as this is a breach of their lease.
More often that not the arrears occur because the freeholder has not been collecting the ground rent annually. Most ground rent arrears are settled when the leaseholder sells their flat as a sale won’t be able to happen until ground rent receipts can be provided to the buyer.
