Lease Extension - your thoughts please

leandygandy

The sale of our 1 bed flat and subsequent purchase of a house has fallen through because of issues with the lease on our place.

There are 72 years remaining - our buyer was well aware of this and said she did not mind, until the last minute before exchange. A little inconvenient, but hey that's her prerogative. No huge quibbles here.

We approached our freeholders to see how much an extension would cost (this was about 3 months ago) - they came back with an offer of £15k to add an additional 28 years to the lease.

We replied that this seemed excessive, to which a new offer of £13k was made.

We stated that our research had shown that we should anticipate a cost of c.£10k to add 90 years to the lease, and therefore the charge still seemed massively overinflated.

Today we have received a reply from the freeholders that they are not willing to negotiate futher.

What are our options?

I thought we wereentitled to extend by a further 90 years, so 28 years has really thrown me! (we have lived here for 3 and a half years, by the way)

One thought was that we may aproach a developer and see about part exchanging - one said they would consider a leasehold property but we'd need to pop in and see them as it's done on a case by case basis...appointment made to check this avenue out

The other is that we take it to a tribunal as I feel quite strongly that the freeholders are taking the biscuit - Obviously if it comes to it we need to extend the lease prior to selling but don't want to pay over the odds. Please could somebody correct me if I am wrong on this. Has anybody gone down this route? Could you advise on the cost / time input required?

We can't reduce the price of the flat to reflect the short lease as there just isn't the room to manouveure in our budget - the offer we accepted was already 7.5k below asking.

Thanks for any help in advance

G_M

lease advice here.

timmyt

leandygandy wrote: »

The sale of our 1 bed flat and subsequent purchase of a house has fallen through because of issues with the lease on our place.

There are 72 years remaining - our buyer was well aware of this and said she did not mind, until the last minute before exchange. A little inconvenient, but hey that's her prerogative. No huge quibbles here.

We approached our freeholders to see how much an extension would cost (this was about 3 months ago) - they came back with an offer of £15k to add an additional 28 years to the lease.

We replied that this seemed excessive, to which a new offer of £13k was made.

We stated that our research had shown that we should anticipate a cost of c.£10k to add 90 years to the lease, and therefore the charge still seemed massively overinflated.

Today we have received a reply from the freeholders that they are not willing to negotiate futher.

What are our options?

I thought we wereentitled to extend by a further 90 years, so 28 years has really thrown me! (we have lived here for 3 and a half years, by the way)

One thought was that we may aproach a developer and see about part exchanging - one said they would consider a leasehold property but we'd need to pop in and see them as it's done on a case by case basis...appointment made to check this avenue out

The other is that we take it to a tribunal as I feel quite strongly that the freeholders are taking the biscuit - Obviously if it comes to it we need to extend the lease prior to selling but don't want to pay over the odds. Please could somebody correct me if I am wrong on this. Has anybody gone down this route? Could you advise on the cost / time input required?

We can't reduce the price of the flat to reflect the short lease as there just isn't the room to manouveure in our budget - the offer we accepted was already 7.5k below asking.

Thanks for any help in advance

Google 'Nick Plotnek', and contact them for advice. Very good and reasonable rates. They will serve legal notices on the landlord to force a sale at a proper valuation. go for it, it is your right (if you qualify for a lease extenion) Nick will tell you

Richard_Webster

The sale of our 1 bed flat and subsequent purchase of a house has fallen through because of issues with the lease on our place.

There are 72 years remaining - our buyer was well aware of this and said she did not mind, until the last minute before exchange.

Buyers don' t understand about lease lengths and mortgageability and being stung by freeholder for a lease extension when they want to sell so they will quite happily say they are happy - until their solicitor explains the significance of the short lease and the costs to them in the future.

How long you have you had this flat? Did your solicitor warn you when you bought it that you might well have to pay a significant sum to get the lease extended? (If you bought recently and he didn't then get him to pay the costs of the lease extension!) Did you understand that when you bought? If you didn't, is it surprising your buyer didn't either?

RedTomato

This sounds excessive. Your flat isn't part of a building that is mostly commercial property is it? As this can make a difference to your rights.

Leasehold Advisory service has all the info on this and I seem to remember they will help you with a fair valuation. Google them.