Lease extension

Pingu1

I've been putting off a lease extension for years, but now at 84/83 years I've decided to go for it before I reach marriage value. Has anyone had experience with a company called Homehold? They seem to offer a all in one package, except for the freeholders legal bill and premium.

JM68

Not used them but they seem to have good Trust Pilot reviews.

The only question I would have is that, as a fixed price inclusive service, what incentive have they got to make sure you don't pay over the odds for the premium?

I say that as when we extended ours we separately instructed a professional RICS valuer (fixed fee) to do the valuation report and indicate what he thought the premium should be and then a solicitor (fixed fee also).

After we served the notice we then get the counter offer, which was tens of thousands of pounds higher than our valuer said a fair premium should be.

We then instructed the valuer to handle negotiations on the basis of an additional fee that would be a percentage of how much lower he could get the premium than the freeholders counter offer.

Negotiations took many months and the freeholder did not agree a premium until just before the tribunal hearing.

In the end we paid almost exactly what our valuer had initially said would be a fair premium, and paid him around £1k extra as the percentage.

The profits of an all inclusive service provider are of course the income received (the fixed fees) less the cost of doing the work.  It follows that the less work they have to do the more profit they make.  I think that does raise a risk that an inclusive service provider might not do everything possible to ensure the premium you will pay is not higher than it should be.

I should add that, if you have not already found out for yourself, various online calculators often have a wide range in suggesting what the premium might be.  So its often quite difficult to establish in advance what a 'fair' premium really is.