Short lease dilemma

seven-day-weekend

My son  used a professional leasehold expert to negotiate on his behalf with the freeholder regarding a price.  Well worth the few hundred it cost.

mlz1413

Edddy nope I've no idea about leases but I contacted a lease specialist surveyor this week and they said that it is normal for the freeholder to request their costs to be paid for valuation and legal fees.  

I'm assuming I need my own surveyor and solicitor to so I can ensure I'm not being done over by the freeholder.   But it appears to be a spiralling money pit!

mlz1413

seven-day-weekend said:

My son  used a professional leasehold expert to negotiate on his behalf with the freeholder regarding a price.  Well worth the few hundred it cost.

I'd be interested in the name of the company as I've only contacted one company so far and they were advising costs of around £2.5k.  So on top of the freeholder costs its a massive amount of fees before even getting to the lease extension cist.

eddddy

mlz1413 said:

Edddy nope I've no idea about leases but I contacted a lease specialist surveyor this week and they said that it is normal for the freeholder to request their costs to be paid for valuation and legal fees.  

Yes - it's normal for the leaseholder to pay the freeholder's reasonable valuation and legal fees.


But that's very, very, very different from saying...

"The freeholder has asked me to pay £2k for valuation and legal fees - so the first thing I'll do is pay £2k without any understanding of what it's for and what I get in return".

For example, some dishonourable freeholders might act like this:..

• you pay that £2k and get nothing useful in return

• the freeholder just messes you about for a year or 2, with silly quotes, delaying tactics, broken promises etc - so that the cost of your lease extension increases

• eventually you get fed up with being messed about and do a statutory lease extension, and you have to pay the freeholder's valuation an legal costs all over again.

I think you really need to pay for your own legal advice first - before paying £2k to the freeholder so that the freeholder can get their legal advice.

NameUnavailable

Go the formal route for a lease extension. That way you won't be paying the freeholder for nothing!

anselld

The formal route starts with you or your solicitor serving s42 notice.  Do not do or agree anything else until that is done.