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Cost of extending lease when you own share of freehold

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Comments

  • Greenr
    Greenr Posts: 286 Forumite
    Emski75 wrote: »
    Dear All,

    We live in an upstairs flat and share the freehold with the flat downstairs.

    Our lease length is 68 years whilst downstairs is 82 years. In readiness to sell our flat, we were advised to extend the lease to 999 years.

    Our initial understanding was that this would cost about £500, which was simply to cover the legal ramifications of the extension.

    We had spoken to our neighbours downstairs about extending the lease and when we asked them to sign the papers our solicitor had prepared, they referred the matter to their solicitor. Their solicitor came back and advised them to get the lease valued. We received a note from them today advising us that the valuation would cost £600 and would we contribute to half of this.

    We are not really sure why the valuation is needed and are now worried that, as a result of the valuation, we could incur substantial further costs due to the difference in lease lengths.

    We have emailed our solicitor for her advice but we won’t hear back from her until Tuesday at the earliest. This has been worrying me all afternoon and I wondered whether anyone could shed any light on the matter for me.

    Thank you in advance.

    Emski


    Hi

    I live in a block of 14 flats. The Management Company set up for the flats owns the freehold and each flat owner has a share in the company. We are planning to extend the flat leases and have been quoted a price of approx £400 per flat by the company solicitor. Can anyone tell me if this price is about right??

    Thanks!!
  • bandraoi
    bandraoi Posts: 1,261 Forumite
    This is interesting, it's the mythical "prisoners dilemma" transposed directly to a real life situation.

    1) If you co-operate and they co-operate, it's cheap for both of you - win win
    2) If they don't co-operate and and you do, it's cheap for them but not for you (lose - win)
    3) If they co-operate and you don't it's expensive for them and cheap for you (win-lose)
    4) If they don't co-operate and you don't co-operate, it's expensive for both of you (lose - lose)

    Since they're going first, and you'll know what they do, they won't get option 2.
    If they don't co-operate, they're therefore guaranteed to lose (options 4)
    If they do co-operate, you might or might not, so they may win or lose (options 1/3)

    Their best bet is to co-operate.
  • Doozergirl
    Doozergirl Posts: 34,082 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Greenr wrote: »
    Hi

    I live in a block of 14 flats. The Management Company set up for the flats owns the freehold and each flat owner has a share in the company. We are planning to extend the flat leases and have been quoted a price of approx £400 per flat by the company solicitor. Can anyone tell me if this price is about right??

    Thanks!!

    I guess it would be about right for the legal costs of extending the leases.

    In your situation, everyone needs their lease extending - no-ones is potentially worth more to the 'freeholder' than anyone elses or if it is, then the solicitor isn't suggesting that anyone try to profit from that, so it's fairly straightforward :)
    Everything that is supposed to be in heaven is already here on earth.
  • Richard_Webster
    Richard_Webster Posts: 7,646 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Originally Posted by Greenr viewpost.gif
    Hi

    I live in a block of 14 flats. The Management Company set up for the flats owns the freehold and each flat owner has a share in the company. We are planning to extend the flat leases and have been quoted a price of approx £400 per flat by the company solicitor. Can anyone tell me if this price is about right??

    Thanks!!

    For what it is worth, as a solcitor, I would agree with Doozergirl this is about right.
    RICHARD WEBSTER

    As a retired conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful assuming any properties concerned are in England/Wales but I accept no liability for it.
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