Extend Your Lease guide discussion

Fire_Fox

Lyncroft wrote: »

My father recently died. He had a flat which was rented out. We began looking into selling it. Rang an estate agents who asked what the lease was. Don't know, I'll find out. Couldn't find any paperwork so went to the land registry and for £3 downloaded the lease. Bummer, it said 99 year lease starting in 1979. We thought he had extended it. Is it possible that he extended it but the extension never made it to the land registry? Has anyone experienced that?

Thanks in advance.

Possible but not likely, just speak to the freeholder. Maybe he got a price and decided it was too expensive or simply did not have the funds to hand.

Lyncroft

Thanks. He had the money but he was caring so had lots on his mind. We know he talked about it but maybe it just got lost amid everything else. Ah, well, thanks anyway.

I've just started looking into all this and used to wonder why they'd be marked difference in simillar flats selling prices. Now I know! It's in London so will be pricey.

SKPatel

Lyncroft wrote: »

My father recently died. He had a flat which was rented out. We began looking into selling it. Rang an estate agents who asked what the lease was. Don't know, I'll find out. Couldn't find any paperwork so went to the land registry and for £3 downloaded the lease. Bummer, it said 99 year lease starting in 1979. We thought he had extended it. Is it possible that he extended it but the extension never made it to the land registry? Has anyone experienced that?

Thanks in advance.

The likely position is as per the Land Registry records i'm afraid. If no lease extension is showing, it is unlikely one would have been completed.

Your father's executors could potentially qualify under the legislation to extend the lease provided your father owned the flat for more than two years. So i would suggest that you keep the flat in your father's name for now to keep open this option.

Good luck!

SKPatel

betsybargainhunter wrote: »

We are in Nottinghamshire and have a leasehold flat that we want to extend the lease of. We want to extend our lease in the next few months so have been looking into it. I have read the entire thread and other websites, I am still quite clueless so I'm sorry if I have missed anything obvious. I have a few questions and hope someone can help.

We went last year to our freeholders about extending the lease, they were a bit vague, and have recently received a letter from their solicitor asking us if we still want to extend the lease, and to get in touch with them about a valuation.

I wondered, do we have to use their solicitor?
Why can't we pick our own solicitor?
Surely the same solicitor can't act for both parties?

Also, what affects the valuation? I am worried it is going to be a lot of money to get the lease extended. Our property is a little bit shabby at the moment eg is cluttered, and a few things have recently broken eg we have a dripping tap and some mould on the ceiling. How will this affect the lease extension valuation??

I wondered what they base the valuation on, how does the internal valuation affect the price, what are they looking for? I am planning to do home repairs, deal with all these things ASAP but I wondered should I hurry and do them before the lease extension valuation, or is it not important??

Since we bought the property (2010) its likely the value of our flat has gone down before we even think of the lease extension costs.

It wasn't made clear to us when we purchased the property that we would have this problem, no one said anything about the short lease, well not that I can remember, and as we haven't lived here long (3 years) and now only have 59/60 years left on the lease and so this will potentially cost us thousands. When we bought the flat we were first time buyers and didn't know much about leases.

Surely we should have been told about this? I can see why the last owners kept quiet wrong as it is, but surely our solicitor should have advised us that the lease was short and we would end up paying thousands more down the line if/when we wanted to sell.
Is there anything we can do about this?

Where should I go from here? Should I get a solicitor or go to theirs for valuation?
I think I know the answer, get our own solicitor, but want to check.
Why would I go to their solicitor because surely they are acting in their clients interests and not ours?

Since getting the letter from their solicitor I am unsure what to do next.

I hope someone can help, thanks for reading

Firstly, I would suggest that you instruct your own solicitor. If anything, at least you know there will be no conflict of interest and your solicitor will act in your best interests.

Secondly, as to valuation, i am told this is as much an art as it is a science! You could agree to the freeholder obtaining their own valuation and see what figures are proposed. However, you will have no way of checking if these are reasonable unless you take advice from your own surveyor. If the negotiations fail, then you may loose any valuation fee you paid to the freeholder.

As you have owned the flat since 2010, you can serve a formal notice on the freeholder exercising your right to extend your lease under the law. You will need to get your own valuation done to be able to propose a figure in the notice. You may wish to consider this option before you hand over any money for valuations to the freeholder.

Good luck!

Lyncroft

SKPatel wrote: »

The likely position is as per the Land Registry records i'm afraid. If no lease extension is showing, it is unlikely one would have been completed.

Your father's executors could potentially qualify under the legislation to extend the lease provided your father owned the flat for more than two years. So i would suggest that you keep the flat in your father's name for now to keep open this option.

Good luck!

Thanks.Hmm, I can see this becoming a bit tricky. My father owned it for many years. It has been left to 3 children, with the other 2 being executors. I'm not an executor and had been considering buying out the other 2. It would cost alot to extend it. Is that the executors responsibility then?

SKPatel

The property has vested in the executors and so they would need to exercise the right to extend the lease. I would suggest you take some legal advice before you transfer or otherwise deal with any assent of the property.

want2bmortgage3

I have received a new quote for a lease extension, lease originally 99 years on 1.1.80. This means now there's under 66 years remaining.

-quote is £15,600 for a new 99 year lease
-ground rent up to £250 from £60 and doubling every 20 years
-admin charge of £995 (warning this would exceed £2k if statutory process invoked).

Now, even borrowing off my mortgage to the limit, I don't have that money available, although I'm not too far off.

I know it is possible to negotiate with the freeholder, so can I just offer them a price I can afford? How much are they likely to drop to get a deal?

Thanks

SKPatel

want2bmortgage3 wrote: »

I have received a new quote for a lease extension, lease originally 99 years on 1.1.80. This means now there's under 66 years remaining.

-quote is £15,600 for a new 99 year lease
-ground rent up to £250 from £60 and doubling every 20 years
-admin charge of £995 (warning this would exceed £2k if statutory process invoked).

Now, even borrowing off my mortgage to the limit, I don't have that money available, although I'm not too far off.

I know it is possible to negotiate with the freeholder, so can I just offer them a price I can afford? How much are they likely to drop to get a deal?

Thanks

Hello!

Yes, you can negotiate with the freeholder. They may increase the ground rent to account for a lesser premium and you would need to consider if this is reasonable. Sometimes a high ground rent can put off a potential buyer. Of course, you may wish to take advice from a surveyor before accepting any offer from the freeholder.

Good Luck!

want2bmortgage3

the lease advice calculator comes up with an estimate between 10-12,000 as I am not sure exactly the current property value.

this suggests the premium offered by the freeholder is rather high.

especially seeing as all the other terms look to be in their favour.

can i make them a 'take it or leave it' offer of say 12,000?

should i also request a longer term (eg 125 years) and longer intervals for ground rent doubling (eg every 25 instead of 20 years?).

with a view to selling once this concludes, what would be my best approach?

richardw

Perhaps consult a solicitor who has successfully achieved better terms for other leaseholders with the same freeholder under the 1993 act.