96 Year Lease

cpage87

Hi All,

I just wanted to get some opinion on a 96 year lease. Ideally I'd prefer to purchase a property with 100+ years but have found a property that ticks all the boxes, though with a 96 year lease remaining. Given that I am a first time buyer who only intends to own the property for 2/3 years would anyone else see an issue with this length of lease? My main concern is on the saleability of a property with a lease of only 90-94 years. I've done a fair amount of research on the process and costs involved with extending the lease so am wondering if that would add enough value to the property to make it worth doing. The property is offered at £225,000.

kingstreet

96 years is fine.

You have no real issues until it goes below 80.

katejo

I agree. I bought one with a new 99 year lease and had no problem selling it when it had 87 years. Did not want to let it drop below 85 years.

Snakey

I just bought with a 96-year lease. I intend to own it long-term so I may extend the lease at some point (while it's still cheap), but even if I was about to sell I think there are plenty of other improvements I could spend my money on that would give a better boost to the resale value.

Lenders like to see 50 years left on the lease at the time the mortgage is due to be paid off (so, 75 years at the start), and buyers like to see over 72 years because below 70 it gets more expensive to extend (and someone at some point will have to bite the bullet on that one, a bit like musical chairs) and you need to have been there for 2 years before you can apply. Or something like that, anyway. So basically if you're above 80 or thereabouts when you sell then the vast majority of buyers will be fine with it.

I was shocked originally by the lease lengths at the flats I was viewing. I'm sure when I used to live up North the leases were like 999 years and so it really was pretty much the same as owning the freehold. Most new leases these days though, I'm told, are only 99 years.

kingstreet

Our current newbuild sites have leases of 999 years, 150 years and the shortest is 125 years.

Richard_Webster

Our current newbuild sites have leases of 999 years, 150 years and the shortest is 125 years.

Hope these are flats and not houses. In some parts of the country builders seem to con people by selling houses long leasehold so they can make extra money from selling on the freeholds to dubious property companies.