Flats and Leasehold

Redbull

Hi all,

Im looking to buy a flat with a long lease. By long lease I mean over 110 years because until I sell it in 10+ years, I don’t want the hassle or the cost of renewing a lease. Most places that im interested in have leases of between 80 and 90 years…I know about marriage value, so I would not even consider anything below 80 years.

I cant seem to find an answer for my question….in general, how much money would I be looking at to renew a lease which currently has 85 years left on it? Im just looking at a rough figure here for a flat that is worth around £150k. Would it be hundreds? thousands? tens of thousands?

Many thanks

petelondon

Redbull

I wrote something in a thread a bit further down about my experience:
cant link to it but it is a similar thread about leases.

I'm no expert but for what you are looking at, I think a few thousand , maybe around £5-6 K will cover what you need, plus another grand or so for solicitor's fees.

80 years is still just about OK,but dont leave it too long like I did lol.

penguine

There's a lease extension calculator on this website (scroll down to the bottom of the page):

www.lease-advice.org/

If you know you're going to want to extend you might be best off organising it at the same time you're purchasing a property as you never know what might happen in the ten years you're planning to own the place (the freeholder might go AWOL or something...)

Redbull

Thanks for the replies guys.

So when a lease is renewed...is it renewed to what it started at? i.e. If a lease started off with 99 years…and now has 85 left, can it be renewed to 125 years…or can it only be renewed back to 99 years? I know there’s the possibility of buying the share of freehold, but im guessing its probably unlikely that would work out.

Sorry, its just me not having a great understanding of leases

Thanks