House with 84 years left on lease

SBD90

The house we are currently looking at making an offer on is up for £165k and has 84 years remaining on the lease. I have asked the EA and they have said it is approx. £6k-£7k to buy the freehold so they think it should be roughly half that for an extension.

Do you think we should attempt to get the current owners to extend this or possibly just do it ourselves in 2 years time if we were to buy the property. Would this be cutting it fine with the 80 years mark?

katejo

SBD90 wrote: »

The house we are currently looking at making an offer on is up for £165k and has 84 years remaining on the lease. I have asked the EA and they have said it is approx. £6k-£7k to buy the freehold so they think it should be roughly half that for an extension.

Do you think we should attempt to get the current owners to extend this or possibly just do it ourselves in 2 years time if we were to buy the property. Would this be cutting it fine with the 80 years mark?

I would avoid leasehold wherever possible after my previous experience. I wouldn't buy a leasehold house at all but, if I really had to, i wouldn't buy any property with under 87-90 years. i sold my flat when it had 87 years and my buyer is now struggling to extend the lease because of a difficult/uncooperative freeholder.

themull1

I wouldnt buy leasehold either.

HouseBuyer77

I have asked the EA and they have said it is approx. £6k-£7k to buy the freehold so they think it should be roughly half that for an extension.

Beware anything an EA says, especially about leases! You may find those figures are rather different once you have a solicitor actually look into it.

There's a calculator here you might want to check out: http://www.lease-advice.org/calculator/

fierystormcloud

Gotta echo what has been said above ^^^ I wouldn't buy leasehold - ever.

Can't fathom why anyone would personally.

stator

Worth getting professional solicitors advice

partialycloudy

I third everyones words of caution here, avoid lease hold as much as possible.
If you love the property, get the seller to extend or at least get a proper valuation done so you know exactly how much it will cost to extend or buy.
We purchased the lease on our old flat a few years ago and there was only £500 difference between buying and renewing the lease.... ours was at 61 years though.
But do not go in blind, get all your information from a professional before you do anything ( An EA is not a professional!)

cloo

If you like it, go for it but maybe check some things out first. You may want to ask the owners to assign the right to you to extend the lease (speak to the Leasehold Advisory Service about this) so you can do that immediately on moving in and avoid waiting two years and cutting close.

Also, do you know who and where the freeholders are? if they're in Outer Mongolia it might be harder to arrange an extension than if they live down the road. Also, there's not officially anything much to stop FH's charging what they hell they like, though you do have some ability to appeal; if they're unscrupulous you could find them trying to madly overcharge you.

We're just (please God) about to exchange, leaving our flat which had 86 years on the lease, and we arranged to extend it with the FH before exchange (now done) and the extension is being registered simultaneously with the sale to avoid having to wait for the Land Registry. Luckily our FH lives in the upstairs flat and also we knew had done an extension before and charged market rate, got a valuer in and everything.

Our buyer wanted an extra few years to take the lease to 125 years and paid for that extra, but we've had to pay the cost of the extension and legal costs, but that was what was necessary to sell. You can ask this of your sellers, as TBH they won't get much interest unless they do it. Or else you can ask for a reduction in terms of the costs and risks of extending yourself - just be sure to go in with eye open.

Or if there are other houses that aren't leasehold and you're not desperate for this one, try somewhere else. Flats round our way are almost all leasehold but it seems fairly unusual for a house.

PasturesNew

You can get the seller to initiate the process as they have the right to do it already (on the basis they've been there 2+ years), you can then get the actual price and arrange to pay it on completion day.

So, they'd apply, get the price, agree to go ahead. On completion day they'd have that in place and have paid for it and you buy the house + that cost to them. Solicitor to arrange dovetailing of dates.

jbainbridge

Also, I wouldn't believe any figures given by the EA - get accurate figures before you proceed!

SBD90

Thanks for all the advice, a lot of houses in the popular estates in my area are leasehold for some reason. I think we will make an offer however ask them to extend the lease providing we can come to a deal.