The houses in our street - all 9 of them, where owned by the factory at the end of the street. They had been built for the workers but by the time I was born no one who lived in the street worked at the factory. When my father talked to the neighbours he knew how much it cost to buy out the lease and it was only a couple of hundred pounds with solicitor's fees. The houses were worth between £800 and £1000 at the time my father bought his lease.
Re being able to afford the lease, two of our neighbours owned new/nearly new cars and had holidays abroad - we couldn't afford either. The answer my father got was either disbelief that the law had been altered or we still have over 30 years to go so why do it now.
My mother sold our house in the mid 1980s, after my father's death, she got £31 000 for it. This was the time the neighbours were paying thousands to buy their leases. They included 5 of the nine neighbours my father tried to convince to buy their lease. 2 admitted to mum that they should have listened to dad, one thought he had it wrong about the law the other like some of the others thought the factory would reduce the amount the nearer the expiry date. The truth hit them hard as not only did the house prices rise quickly but none understood they could be told to leave their house. The factory had them over a barrel - pay up or you are out in a few years. The factory closed down just as the 99 year lease came to an end in 1998.
