Share of freehold - lease extension.

Lemonade_lifestyle_2

Hello,
We are in a chain of 4. Ourselves and our buyers are ready to exchange for 3 weeks. Our seller is buying a flat that has a share of freehold and the lease needs extending. Our sellers solicitor is being really vague as to where they are in the process of this and how long more we can expect to wait. As far as I managed to wheedle out of the estate agent is that the other people with the remaining shares of the freehold are agreeable to the lease being extended and the valuation has been done.

Does anyone have any experience of time frames that this takes and if the two areas above have been done what expected timeframe there could now be? All I get from EA is that we won't be ready to exchange next week but it won't be as long as 12 weeks. Which is not helpful at all.

we have had our offer on this property since 29/2 so 9 weeks on Monday and we are still not even talking prospective dates for exchange. As sellers solicitor has said he will not be tied to a date when it's ready it's ready. :mad::mad:

ANGLICANPAT

If your sellers freeholders all agree to extend the lease - as F/H's it shouldnt cost them anything more than the solicitors fees , so not sure why they would have to have had a valuation done.( Unless the 'valuation' was actually an estimate of the solicitors fees) Would have thought the process was just quick admin. Is this inner London -- |Ive heard some solicitors there quite slothful .Are you able to ask your own solicitor to find out exactly where you are up to with your sale and what the hold up is?

eddddy

ANGLICANPAT wrote: »

If your sellers freeholders all agree to extend the lease - as F/H's it shouldnt cost them anything more than the solicitors fees , so not sure why they would have to have had a valuation done.( Unless the 'valuation' was actually an estimate of the solicitors fees)

There is nothing to stop joint freeholders charge each other "the going rate" for lease extensions.

This might be the case where:
- Some leases had been extended and some hadn't, when the freehold was purchased.
- One leaseholder wants to sell and can't without a lease extension, so the others see an opportunity to make some money

ANGLICANPAT

Ah, good point, Ive only come across it where all leases have been done at the same time so would be pointless each charging the others , but yes I suppose it can happen if they have got out of sync.

Lemonade_lifestyle_2

Thanks for the answers. Our solicitor has been emailing, faxing and calling the sellers solicitor. He either doesn't doesn't respond or says the sale is progressing well. Which is beyond vague. When pressed to say well how far away are we from exchange he says he will not be tied to a date. We don't want an exact date, we just want an estimation of time left in the process !

What we do know is that, the flat our seller is purchasing is being sold with a share of the freehold. Ie he is also purchasing share of the freehold as well as getting a lease extension.

The estate agent is being just as vague and just starts telling me that a lease is a legal document that is written in old English, and you know it would take time to write that up <roll eyes>

Lemonade_lifestyle_2

Oh and it's greater London. Our solicitor is super efficient and he is getting so frustrated with our sellers solicitor.