The worst part about this concept is that home owners that don't own the land will try to sell you the house like they own the land. This is why I never look at these properties. They should be cheaper, but they are not.
And it may be that the best bit is that with 'leasehold' you have legal protection from responsibities (often due to said leaseholder) which lie in the province of the freeholder. It's not always such a smart idea to have a freehold property in a city.
Because in practice it usually makes little difference.
Ground rents are often as little as £10 a year.
That's not true - there have been a bunch of cases recently where the ground rent is much more than that a doubles every x years