Ground rent is a bizarre UK property law concept. The resident will have paid for the leasehold of the property (typically a one off payment for 99 years occupancy which is transferable if they want to sell to someone else) but the company retains the freehold and can charge ground rent in return for absolutely nothing (this is different to a service charge which would fund things like communal space/facilities upkeep). This arrangement sort of makes a tiny bit of sense for apartments if you're being generous about it but there was a scandal in the UK that lots of regular houses were being sold leasehold not freehold with ground rent that started at a token level but ramped up significantly above inflation

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