Leasehold - Potential Problem ?

rab_cilbup

Am in the process of sorting my mortgage out, conveyancing is going on at the minute (see my other thread) - have had to send the solicitor dealing with this some extra info as the Land Registry documentation was ambiguous in it's description of the lease.

However, when sending it off, I noticed that my lease has 54 years, 10 months and 11 days to run - if I'm reading it right. My offer specifies 55 years minimum - does anyone have any experience of how much of a problem this is likely to cause ?

Mortgage is with the Abbey, have obviously contacted my broker but won't hear back until tomorrow at the earliest.

minimike2

I would be wary about purchasing a property with such a short time left on the lease. It is effectively losing value and its saleability year on year.

Have you found out if the lease can be extended? If not I wouldnt touch with a barge pole.

If you arent bothered, then the simple answer would be to reduce your mortgage term by a year, as usually the lender requires "x" number of years longer than the mortgage term. So that should be an easy fix, but I would seriously think twice about the purchase unless you can get the lease to at least 99 years.

rab_cilbup

Thanks.

Sorry, should have said, I actually own the property outright already and am remortaging. So no, am not really bothered from that aspect.

The wording on the lease / assignment etc is very confusing, hence me having to send copies of everything to the conveyancer. Apparently there are two leases - a 999 year one from the builder to another company and then a 99 year one from this other company to me - again, at least that's the way I read it.

Am 99% sure it can be extended. The exact term in the offer was "minimum of 55 years at the start and 30 years at the end" - it's a 20 year mortgage, so the latter applies, it's just the former that it seems to be slightly out on. Have done some reading of the fine print of the general terms and conditions since I posted and it does say that they may accept shorter leases.