Lease Extension and decisions made!

leandygandy

Hi all,

We are going through the lease extension process and the freeholders originally wanted £15k to add 28 years (I think) to the lease and triple the ground rent when we made informal queries.

We've gone down the legal route to do the extension, and we got a letter yesterday to say that the freeholder's counter offer to ours (£4586 to add 90 years and peppercorn rent as per our surveyors advices) is £8700 and this is for the additional 90 years and peppercorn rent.

Now this is fantastic as in my mind I was paranoid that they wouldn't budge on their figure and we'd not have enough money put aside to cover the extension plus costs...but worst case scenario we have enough to settle at this figure.

However, we still feel their figure is slightly on the high side will be asking our surveyor to contact theirs to discuss the discrepancies between how they both came to their figures, with a view to shaving some more off the figure.

So on to the next part of the issue :rotfl:

We're expecting a baby in September, so living in a one bed flat has become a shorter term option than we had originally planned. We'll extend the lease and then put the flat on the market next spring, with a view to being moved out in the summer/autumn, so mini-G will be around 9 months to a year old, the point at which we anticipate needing a garden etc.

So the decision has been made to sell up, hopefully break even (realistically speaking there'll not be any profit for a deposit for elsewhere) and move into rented accommodation (probs a little two bed place with some outside space) for a year or two. We'll be saving approx £200-300 a month compared to our mortgage at the moment, and the move should enable us to start fresh and save up for a new deposit (obviously not in the first year as we'll be surviving on the one wage while I'm on maternity leave)

Crazy really, I never imagined I'd be stepping off the property ladder! But a garden for my child to play in and an extra bedroom are more important right now than my need to own a home.

So all told, things are a-changing, but I'm very happy with that.

Just wanted to let people know that a lease extension doesn't always have to be a headache - I know ours isn't completed yet so I may be speaking too soon, but thus far I've found it much less stressful than I anticipated!