‘Salesman said we could buy freehold’
JOANNE Darbyshire and her husband Mark feel trapped in their home after changes to their lease left them facing soaring costs.
When they bought their £ 00,000 house leasehold from Taylor Wimpey in 2010, the couple claim the salesman told them the freehold could be bought later for £5,000.
The annual ground rent on the detached threebed property was set at £295, a figure that would double every ten years. But two years later the developer sold the freehold to an offshore company without offering it to the couple – and they were later told it would cost them up to £33,000 to buy the freehold.
They have since been offered a ground rent contract but it means the freehold would still cost £10,000.
Mrs Darbyshire, 8, said: ‘People say you should have read the small print but none of these things were there.’