Do i really need to increase my lease to 130 years, sounds crazy....

RHemmings

harrys66 said:

Sorry no

It has to be leasehold, as the land all the flats are built on belongs to *all* the flat owners

hence the reason why *each* the flat owners, own 1/40th of the company that owns the lease

no other third party is involved

Owns the freehold, surely. 

NameUnavailable

I think some clarification is in order. You have a leasehold flat with 88 years remaining on the lease. You are also a part shareholder in the freehold company that owns the freehold.

If you want to extend a lease you have two options, a formal lease extension or an informal one.

In both cases the freeholder would (usually) expect a fair market value for the lease extension (there are online calculators you can check for a rough idea of cost) and for you to pay the legal fees.

Owning a share of freehold doesn't automatically mean that the above won't still apply - you would need to pay £XXXX to the freehold company but as you own 1/40th you would effectively get 1/40th of the fee (excluding legal costs of course).

However, if all leases are the same length, then it would be in everyones best interest to extend all leases to 999 years at the same time and share the freeholder costs (legal fees) without having to pay anything to the freehold company for the actual extension.

It's probable that many of your neighbours don't appreciate the issue they will have with such relatively short leases if they decide to sell or remortgage at some point. You may need to explain this to them and also explain why joint agreement of everyone to extend together makes the best financial sense.

It might be more difficult though if some people have already extended and had to pay the freehold company to do so.

harrys66

NameUnavailable said:

I think some clarification is in order. You have a leasehold flat with 88 years remaining on the lease. You are also a part shareholder in the freehold company that owns the freehold.

If you want to extend a lease you have two options, a formal lease extension or an informal one.

In both cases the freeholder would (usually) expect a fair market value for the lease extension (there are online calculators you can check for a rough idea of cost) and for you to pay the legal fees.

Owning a share of freehold doesn't automatically mean that the above won't still apply - you would need to pay £XXXX to the freehold company but as you own 1/40th you would effectively get 1/40th of the fee (excluding legal costs of course).

However, if all leases are the same length, then it would be in everyones best interest to extend all leases to 999 years at the same time and share the freeholder costs (legal fees) without having to pay anything to the freehold company for the actual extension.

It's probable that many of your neighbours don't appreciate the issue they will have with such relatively short leases if they decide to sell or remortgage at some point. You may need to explain this to them and also explain why joint agreement of everyone to extend together makes the best financial sense.

It might be more difficult though if some people have already extended and had to pay the freehold company to do so.

hi, thanks for the detailed reply.

nothing is ever simple when it comes to lease's is it

def' some interesting point there to pursue further, much appreciated