Mr S from the southside of Dublin paid his groundrent of £16.80 up to 1985, never to do so again. "In mitigation, I have to tell you that I have had no requests for payment from the lease landlord during all that time."

Recently, however, he received a letter from the landlord requesting that he pay the back rent. By statute of limitation, a leaseholder can only sue for six years' back ground-rent.

Mr Michael O'Gorman is a property partner at the law firm A & L Goodbody. "To buy out a ground-rent under the Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rent)(No 2) Act 1978, you go to the Land Registry Office and fill out either a Consent Procedure form or an Arbitration Procedure form. The former is used when the parties agree to the purchase, the second if there is a dispute, or the landlord is unknown. The cost of buying out the ground-rent is 12.5 times the annual rent." In our reader's case this amounts to £210.

"The first procedure will cost you a fee of £26 if you are in occupation of the house and £52 if you are not. The Arbitration Procedure costs £89 if you are in occupation and £157 if you are not."

Finally, a word of warning. If you let your household lease run down to less than 15 years, the leaseholder is entitled to one-eighth of the market value of the house as the buy-out price.