Coach house leasehold garage

Nath272000

Hi all,
I own a freehold for a modern coach house (built 2009) in bristol, and there is currently 85 years on the lease of two of the three garages that two houses nearby own. One of the home owners is selling and the new potential buyer wants to extend the lease as a condition of buying, obviously i would have to except this. Would anyone know if there is a value to me for extending it? Any experience on what extending a lease is worth (if anything)?
Cheers,
N

eddddy

Nath272000 said:

 Any experience on what extending a lease is worth (if anything)?

The short answer is... the lease extension is worth whatever the garage owner is prepared to pay for it.

A 'hard-nosed' freeholder might think like this...

"The garage owner wants to sell his house, and the 85 year lease on the garage seems to be an obstacle to selling. So how much is the garage owner prepared to pay to remove the obstacle, so that they can sell their house? £500, £1k, £5k, £10k, £20k?"

But maybe you don't think like that.

So, amongst other things, you could...

• Pick a number - to start a negotiation process
• Or you could ask the garage owner to make an offer - and assume their first offer is low, so respond by asking for double whatever they have offered
• Or even just ignore them, if you want

Bear in mind that you might have £1k or more in legal fees for the lease extension - you should make it clear to the garage owner that they'll have to pay your legal fees.

dizzycarrot

Nath272000 said:

Hi all,
I own a freehold for a modern coach house (built 2009) in bristol, and there is currently 85 years on the lease of two of the three garages that two houses nearby own. One of the home owners is selling and the new potential buyer wants to extend the lease as a condition of buying, obviously i would have to except this. Would anyone know if there is a value to me for extending it? Any experience on what extending a lease is worth (if anything)?
Cheers,
N

This is so odd - we live in Bristol, in a house with a garage below a coach house built in circa 2008/2009 and have just sold our house... are you our next door neighbour?!!

We thought the garage had a 999 year lease, but upon getting the paperwork out it seems it was originally 99 years - I do worry if this is going to cause any issues. There are quite a few coach houses around the development so surely this is going to become a bit of an issue for a few people over the next few years - there must be some way of calculating a fair price?

Nath272000

Haha, that would be weird, are you Horfield?! You probably are my neighbour. I assumed it was a 999 year lease as well, but turns out it is much lower, currently being asked if I'd consider increasing the lease, but not sure it's needed, 85 years is a long time!

dizzycarrot

Ah, it's a small world, but apparently not that small. I'm on the other side of Bristol

I just dug out our lease to see if there is anything in there about extending it, and a skim read didn't reveal anything. Except, it's actually 155 year lease, which feels like an odd number?? 

Nath272000

Thanks eddddy, I think you have a sensible approach, the new prospective buyer has been told that they will need to foot all legal costs if I go ahead and extend it. Not sure on the legal status of the garage at the moment besides that I own the freehold. Current owners/hopeful sellers thought they owned it but it seems that was never signed across to their names when they bought the property they live in, they had owned 50% of the property and when they bought the other 50% off the housing association the garage's lease never got moved across so the housing Association still owns in. Bit of a mess to be honest, I'm only interested in who I need to contact if there are any repairs needed, as the leaseholders of the garages need to pay 1/6th...

Nath272000

Good luck with your move dizzycarrot.