Extend Your Lease guide discussion

Tom99

Suzy14 wrote: »

My parent has a short lease on his maisonette of about 30 years left from a 99 year lease.
We understand that if this is renewed the cost could be an enormous amount of about £80000. The value of the property with a short lease is about £250000.
Does this seem fair that the freeholder can charge so much.?
Is there any way that we may be able to reduce this cost.
I would appreciate any advice
Thank you.

As said above a 30yr lease will be worth about half the value of a new long lease so one or both of those figures sound way out.

Tom99

0labisi wrote: »

Hello all. I live in a groundfloor maisonette. I am looking to extend the lease. I envision this being the first of many posts

To do this the freeholders management company say I must pay a fee and they will send out a surveyor who will report and they will then give me a price....I am fine to do this however do I have to use thier surveyor, or is it more impartial if I get my own?

To start the process should I go ahead with the survey as above or instruct solicitors right away

next query. I cannot remember how long is left on the lease i am thinking it is just over 80 years. When I bought the property in 2011 it had over 90 years on it but this was done via a deed of variation. I have looked and I cannot find this in my papaerwork, i can find everything else! Where can I get a copy of this from?

Thanks in advance

If you cannot find a copy of your lease and deed of variation then download a copy of the title register for £3 from here:
https://eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/eservices/FindAProperty/view/QuickEnquiryInit.do
That should tell you the basic details such as term. The Land Reg may also hold a copy of the lease which I think you apply for in writing.

Suzy14

My mistake, the lease is 39 years to go not 30 years.
A similar property was sold last year for £320000 with an extended lease.

Thank you for your reply

Suzy

desamax

Any help here, we have 79 years left on our lease we understood the cost to formally extend is around 6k. We decided to severe the s42 notice ourselves. We have a response from our Freeholders solicitor asking for 10% of the premium we proposed, also who our valuer was and evidence that the notice was also served on the management company. We have based our offer on prices sold in the last twelve months on identical properties on our development. Can anyone advise on how we should respond to the solicitors questions.
Are we to late to appoint a surveyor as we have kicked off the process
and are slightly concerned.
Thanks.

Tom99

desamax wrote: »

Any help here, we have 79 years left on our lease we understood the cost to formally extend is around 6k. We decided to severe the s42 notice ourselves. We have a response from our Freeholders solicitor asking for 10% of the premium we proposed, also who our valuer was and evidence that the notice was also served on the management company. We have based our offer on prices sold in the last twelve months on identical properties on our development. Can anyone advise on how we should respond to the solicitors questions.
Are we to late to appoint a surveyor as we have kicked off the process
and are slightly concerned.
Thanks.

Its 10% of the premium you have quoted or £250 whichever is the greater.
Unless you are familiar with both the legal process and valuation calculations you should have employed your own solicitor and RICS surveyor to act for you.
It is very easy to not get things right and serve an invalid notice. I am not sure whether service a copy of the notice on the management co is an essential, that may be why you are being asked to show your notice was invalid.
You will have to pay the freeholders solicitor and surveyor anyway and unless you have the expertise you may end up much worse off not employing your own.

eddddy

desamax wrote: »

and evidence that the notice was also served on the management company.

Do you have a tripartite lease?

That is a lease with 3 parties on it - leaseholder, freeholder and management company? If so, maybe you have to serve notice on the management company.

If it's a more normal lease between 2 parties - leaseholder and freeholder - you shouldn't need to serve notice on the management co.

desamax wrote: »

We have based our offer on prices sold in the last twelve months on identical properties on our development. Can anyone advise on how we should respond to the solicitors questions.
Are we to late to appoint a surveyor as we have kicked off the process

Has the freeholder served their counter offer notice? If not, it's probably best not to say anything until they have.

Then you could just say that that for the moment you are dealing with legal matters and negotiations yourself.

But unless you really know what you're doing - you might be seriously shafted by the freeholder's solicitor and valuer.

It's not to late to appoint a valuer - assuming a valuer is happy to come in at this stage. But they might disagree with your valuation.

desamax

Thanks for the responses, I will try to get an lease extension firm onboard, and hope we can salvage this.
Thanks ever so much.

Mandelbaum

Very informative thread!

Can anyone advise on this situation?

Our flat's leasehold is with Brent Council. it has 88 years left so that's all good... and the intention is to get the extension done as cost-efficiently as possible.

We initially tried the informal route but Brent Council don't do informal.

We've duly engaged a solicitor, plus a valuer who's valued the flat at £475k and recommended in his report a settlement figure of £6,500. £475k is slap bang in the range we expected based upon the recent sale of similar stuff nearby. Ground rent is fixed £10 p.a.

Question: is there a way of circumventing Brent going through the process of doing their own valuation so we can avoid that cost? Even a significantly divergent valuation to our guy's £475k (which I don't envisage, but let's play devil's advocate for a moment) won't make much material difference to the settlement fee.

Tom99

Mandelbaum wrote: »

Very informative thread!

Can anyone advise on this situation?

Our flat's leasehold is with Brent Council. it has 88 years left so that's all good... and the intention is to get the extension done as cost-efficiently as possible.

We initially tried the informal route but Brent Council don't do informal.

We've duly engaged a solicitor, plus a valuer who's valued the flat at £475k and recommended in his report a settlement figure of £6,500. £475k is slap bang in the range we expected based upon the recent sale of similar stuff nearby. Ground rent is fixed £10 p.a.

Question: is there a way of circumventing Brent going through the process of doing their own valuation so we can avoid that cost? Even a significantly divergent valuation to our guy's £475k (which I don't envisage, but let's play devil's advocate for a moment) won't make much material difference to the settlement fee.

I doubt it, they have got to do their own check.
£6,500 looks like £475,000 deferred 88yrs at 5%.
Where you might save is if both sides charge extra for negotiation.
If the LA think its worth 10% more than you do, say £525,000 then the extra premium would be c £650/£700 which you could easily spend in negotiating fees.

[Deleted User]

I am posting for some advice as leasehold properties are a new thing to me, we have only ever owned freehold previously.

My mother is moving soon, and on getting an offer on her property (which is too big for her) she's found a cheap leasehold property with a 59 year lease. She's rather fallen in love with it and as its cheap she can afford to renew the lease and then redecorate the place as well, and still have a little bit left over.

She have been quoted £33k to renew the lease (we have yet to ask how long this extension is). Is this a good price?

I have read that once she owns the property, am I correct to assume she can go ahead and start the lease extension paperwork? Even if she hasnt lived there for two years?

Also, who would she contact in the first instance to get the ball rolling? Solicitor, or LA? Or someone else?