Why should you avoid leasehold?

Why you should avoid leasehold includes financial risks, decreasing value, and high ongoing costs that make freehold preferable for many buyers. You should avoid leasehold for several reasons including lease length decreasing each year, with property value dropping sharply when remaining lease falls below 80 years, making it difficult to sell and mortgage, as mortgage lenders like major UK banks require at least 70 to 80 years remaining lease for mortgage approval, and lease extension costing £10,000 to £30,000 plus legal and valuation fees for 90 year extension, with cost increasing as lease shortens, and high ongoing costs including ground rent payable to freeholder, typically £100 to £500 per year but some leases have doubling clauses where ground rent doubles every 10 years, leading to ground rent of £1,000 plus after few decades, making property unsellable, as seen in UK leasehold scandal with many new build houses sold as leasehold with doubling ground rents, and service charges around £1,000 to £4,000 per year for building maintenance, insurance, and management, which can increase without control, and restrictions on alterations, extensions, and pets requiring freeholder permission with fees, and risk of forfeiture if you fail to pay ground rent or breach lease, with freeholder able to repossess property. So avoid leasehold due to decreasing lease length reducing value, costly extension, high ground rent and service charges, restrictions, and forfeiture risk, with freehold offering full ownership and control.