Legal Jargon

Paying off one mortgage loan and taking out another, usually with a different lender, on the same property. Property owners often remortgage to take advantage of a change in interest rates or when a period of discount/fixed rate comes to an end.

A modest rent that levied on some freehold properties by the original landowner, for example a landowner who has sold land to a developer. Rentcharges are sometimes created simply to generate profit but may be used as a way to ensure requirements about the property are complied with. Rentcharges extinguish automatically on 21st July 2037 or 60 years from the date of which the Rentcharge first became payable, whichever is later. However, under the 1977 Rentcharge Act, property owners can buy out or redeem the Rentcharges attached to their property.

An initial payment to a builder or developer or their agent to reserve a new-build property.

In practical terms, peppercorn rent means the leaseholder pays zero ground rent to the freeholder. All new residential leaseholders are created with peppercorn rent. The phrase originates from the concept that a leaseholder would pay a nominal rent to the freehold owner in acknowledgement of their continuing right over the property in the sum of a single peppercorn – the type that you would usually grind up in a pepper mill.

Approval by the planning authority to the construction, and extension or alteration of a property, or a change of its use, for example from commercial to residential.

Possessory title is a class of legal title given by the Land Registry where absolute legal title evidence is not available, for instance if the original title deeds have been lost or destroyed or the land has been claimed.

A way of giving permission to someone, either temporarily or for the rest of your life, to make decisions and act on your behalf in relation to your personal affairs, usually relating to financial and/or health and welfare matters. Actions taken by your attorney are legally binding and you should therefore take legal advice before granting power of attorney.

A road which is not an adopted highway and therefore not maintained at public expense. Property owners adjoining a private road need to have particular, and preferably documented, rights known as easements over it as it is not necessarily a road that offers public access.

A search to check whether a property in a property transaction may be affected by past or present coal, tin, china clay or other mineral mining.

The formal document used when a lender lends money to a property buyer or existing owner. This may also be described as a Legal Charge. The deed is signed by all parties to the loan and registered against the property at the Land Registry, securing repayment of the load to the lender, either from the borrower via mortgage repayments or when the property is sold, including its sale as part of a person’s estate following their death.