Lease extension success!

leandygandy

Hello all,

The drinks are on me this evening! :beer:

Our lease extension has been agreed at £6,500 today.:j

Freeholders originally wanted £15,000 'informally' to extend from 72 years to 99 years and double the ground rent, then dropped to £8,700 to add 90 years and peppercorn rent after we served legal notice on them, and after further negotiation have now come to the £6,500.

We were quoted by our surveyor '£4,586 but obviously they will ask for more' at the very start of the process, so set in our minds £7,000-£7,500 as the most we would be willing to pay, so we are very satisfied with today's developments.

:beer:

Shall be sad to see the money leave our savings account though

Just thought I'd post this so that people going through the same process can see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel sometimes!

Opinion

Where did you start the process?

I'm currently looking at a flat with a 99 year lease and was wondering how much extending this would cost. I've seen people post links to a calculator in various threads and will go searching for them later, unless someone has it to hand :A

Slinky

Blimey, we were quoted £500 to extend a lease with similar timeline by 25 years, and that included the legal fees (must admit we nearly fell over when they told us!). We offered to do this for the person buying our flat, but they decided not to bother!

LallyPops

Hi there

Congratulations on getting your lease sorted! I'm in a rather sticky situation and wonder if anyone might be able to assist? I need to extend my lease which is currently at 62 years ( I know, it's not good). Anyhow, the freeholder is stating £14,500 plus all the associated legal costs which is a scary figure. The flat's committee have sought independent advice and had a valuation of £9000 which, whilst not exactly cheap, is obviously more appealing than that of the freeholder!

Leandygandy - how did you enter into negotiations with the freeholder? I simply don't know where to start and am saving like crazy to get the funds together but if there is any hope in getting a reduced price that would be ace!

Thanks in advance!

leandygandy

Sorry, for some reason I never replied to you - how rude of me!

Opinion wrote: »

Where did you start the process?

I'm currently looking at a flat with a 99 year lease and was wondering how much extending this would cost. I've seen people post links to a calculator in various threads and will go searching for them later, unless someone has it to hand :A

LallyPops wrote: »

Hi there

Congratulations on getting your lease sorted! I'm in a rather sticky situation and wonder if anyone might be able to assist? I need to extend my lease which is currently at 62 years ( I know, it's not good). Anyhow, the freeholder is stating £14,500 plus all the associated legal costs which is a scary figure. The flat's committee have sought independent advice and had a valuation of £9000 which, whilst not exactly cheap, is obviously more appealing than that of the freeholder!

Leandygandy - how did you enter into negotiations with the freeholder? I simply don't know where to start and am saving like crazy to get the funds together but if there is any hope in getting a reduced price that would be ace!

Thanks in advance!

In the first instance we contacted the freeholder (in our case a management company rather than individuals). Once we had their letter confirming the figure they wanted (which seemed to be plucked out of thin air...) , we simply found a surveyor to value the flat both with and without the extended lease, he then did us a report advising what he believed the premium should be. The freeholders appointed their own surveyor as well, who came round and did the same.

From there we instructed our surveyor to negotiate an agreeable premium for all on our behalf and a solicitor to perform the legals.

We have completed on the lease extension today so it is finally all tied up :j

As an aside, I am really happy with the work that was done by both our surveyor and solicitor, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them if anyone is interested.

All told it has come in at c.£11k for additional 90 years and peppercorn rent, instead of £15k plus all associated costs for additional 27 years and doubled ground rent :T