leasehold expiry date not as first told..

agh100

Hi
Were are currently purchasing a leasehold flat.
The property was advertised as 109 yrs remaining on the lease.
However our solicitors have now received details from the vendors solicitors and it shows the lease as 125 yrs from 1982, so 100 remaining.

So it's 9 years less than originally advertised. Is this something to be bothered about - does it affect the value of the property?
Or should we just accept this?


Thanks,

Doozergirl

It won't affect the value with those lengths of lease.

Just extend the lease at around 82 years, if you were ever planning to stay that long!

Richard_Webster

I agree with doozergirl.

What may have happened is that sellers may have confused the date of the lease itself with the date of the commencement of the term.

So the lease may have been dated some date in 1991 and the sellers knew it was 125 years so assumed the period started then. However builders/local authorities when granting leases usually want all the leases in the same block to run for the same period so if a lease is granted some years after the first one they often back date the commencement date of the lease period so they all end at the same time!

As a conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful but I accept no liability except to fee-paying client

cattie

A couple of leasehold flats I've bought had shorter leases than the vendors had advised the ea.

Some sellers are genuinely confused about the true lenght of the lease, even though all they have to do is check their documents to find the amount of years remaining, but others can try to be a little bit deceitful in an effort to make the property sound even more appealing to potential purchasers.

One of the first things a buyer's solicitor does is check the true length of the lease & good ones advise you if the lease is considerably shorter than stated as to affect the value of the property.

As others have stated here, a 100yr lease is a good term. I wonder if it's an ex local authority property as they tend to be granted for a term of 125 yrs, whereas many private properties have leases of 99 yrs duration.

agh100

Hi
thanks for the replies. I think as someone said, the vendors have just got confused as the lease was modified in 1993, but according to our solicitors the term is still 125 years from 1982.
And yes it is an ex council property, well spotted!
I guess a 100 year term is still fine, say we sell in 8 years time, will we still be able to sell the property at full price if there's only 92 years left?

Thanks again