If you buy a freehold property, in law you are buying the land on which the building is standing, together with the air space above it and the soil beneath it, together with the garden (if any). Since you cannot own slices of air space, properties which overlap one another such as flats are nearly always sold as leasehold.  This means that there will be an individual or individuals or a company which will own the freehold of the site on which the building stands. The owner of that freehold creates leases for each flat in the building.

A lease is a lengthy and comprehensive document which creates the relationship of landlord and tenant. This is inevitably a far more complex relationship than being the owner of a freehold property. The lease needs to make provision for:

• repairs of the whole building as well as the repair of your particular flat;
• insurance of the whole building;
• the rights to use common staircases, footpaths, gardens etc.

You will almost certainly have to:

• pay a ground rent to the landlord;
• contribute towards the insurance;
• contribute towards the services and repairs of the development

These service charges may be collected monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or annually.