Landlords reasonable costs re new lease

Sue11

Can anyone tell me what a landlords reasonable costs could be relating to purchasing a new lease on a flat that is valued at £200,000 with a ground rent of £200 per year. The lease has 83 years on it.

theartfullodger

https://www.lease-advice.org/calculator/

Reasonable? Well that depends if you are the landlord, the leaseholder or someone charging either of them to give them advice...

How much longer is wanted, please?

eddddy

Sue11 wrote: »

Can anyone tell me what a landlords reasonable costs could be relating to purchasing a new lease on a flat that is valued at £200,000 with a ground rent of £200 per year. The lease has 83 years on it.

Are you asking about costs (as in legal costs etc), or the price that you would have to pay for a lease extension?

If everything's been agreed, and you're asking how much the landlord/freeholder's solicitor would charge for preparing the deed of variation etc, it might be about £1,500.

Then there's your solicitor's fee as well.

But if you're talking about a statutory lease extension (where everything isn't agreed), the solicitors and valuers fees might be much higher.


If it's something else, you need to be a little more specific.

Sue11

The lease renewal is £5000 my solicitors fee is £1500 and it has been mentioned that the landlord is asking £2500 to £3000 fees. I am aware the landlord is not allowed to make a profit on his fees so I am thinking this amount is far too much.

eddddy

Sue11 wrote: »

The lease renewal is £5000 my solicitors fee is £1500 and it has been mentioned that the landlord is asking £2500 to £3000 fees. I am aware the landlord is not allowed to make a profit on his fees so I am thinking this amount is far too much.

I assume that this is an informal lease extension, rather than a statutory lease extension.


The landlord/freeholder has to charge 'reasonable' fees for carrying out their responsibilities stated in lease. (I guess that's what you mean by 'not allowed to make a profit'.)

But extending a lease isn't a responsibility that's stated in the lease.

So I believe that the landlord/freeholder can charge you whatever admin fee they want (as well as whatever price they want for the lease extension).

So your options are:
- pay the fee they are asking
- try to negotiate it down
- do a statutory lease extension instead (where the landlord won't be able to add random fees - only those stated in the legislation)


(In general, are you happy that the terms your landlord is offering are good - especially the ground rent?)