Lease extension - informal v formal

nat160

Hi there has anyone got any exp

nat160

Sorry pressed send to soon! Has anyone got experience of doing an informal lease extension with a big housing association? We have a 87yr lease flat with Clarion Housing so trying to decide whether to go down formal or informal route as we are looking to sell later this year. Thanks

DullGreyGuy

yes                 

eddddy

nat160 said:

Sorry pressed send to soon! Has anyone got experience of doing an informal lease extension with a big housing association? We have a 87yr lease flat with Clarion Housing so trying to decide whether to go down formal or informal route as we are looking to sell later this year. Thanks

(Assuming you own 100% of your flat - so not shared ownership....)


Clarion give a fairly good summary of the pros and cons - see below.

One possibility is that you...

• Ask Clarion for a quote for an informal lease extension (and pay them for their valuation)

• Then get your own valuation for a statutory lease extension (which you'd pay for)

...and then decide if their informal quote is fair. If it's not fair, you can try 'arguing' with them a bit. If that doesn't work, you can start the statutory route.



Here's what Clarion say:
https://www.latimerhomes.com/my-home/home-ownership-questions/extend-lease

nat160

DullGreyGuy said:

yes                 

Did they try to put any extra clauses into the new lease after you'd accepted or charge an overly-high premium? Have seen some horror stories from other's experiences with different freeholders so want to find out if Clarion are more straightforward or if I need to take that into consideration, thanks!

nat160

eddddy said:

nat160 said:

Sorry pressed send to soon! Has anyone got experience of doing an informal lease extension with a big housing association? We have a 87yr lease flat with Clarion Housing so trying to decide whether to go down formal or informal route as we are looking to sell later this year. Thanks

(Assuming you own 100% of your flat - so not shared ownership....)


Clarion give a fairly good summary of the pros and cons - see below.

One possibility is that you...

• Ask Clarion for a quote for an informal lease extension (and pay them for their valuation)

• Then get your own valuation for a statutory lease extension (which you'd pay for)

...and then decide if their informal quote is fair. If it's not fair, you can try 'arguing' with them a bit. If that doesn't work, you can start the statutory route.



Here's what Clarion say:

Thanks for this, yes own the flat outright - have got some initial indication of the process and costs from Clarion and informal route seems simpler, but want to see if there's any potenital pitfalls from someone who's already been through the process 

eddddy

nat160 said:

Thanks for this, yes own the flat outright - have got some initial indication of the process and costs from Clarion and informal route seems simpler, but want to see if there's any potenital pitfalls from someone who's already been through the process 

If a freeholder is 'nasty' there are many tricks they can play on you with an informal lease extension, for example...

• Increasing the price at the last moment before contracts are signed
• Stringing you along for months or years pretending that they'll agree to a lease extension - but they have no intention of doing so

But I very much doubt that a housing association would play those kind of tricks.

You can ask them questions like:

• It they grant an informal lease extension, will it be on identical terms to a statutory lease extension?
• Will they want to make any changes to the lease - apart from reducing ground rent to zero, and extending it by 90 years?

Their answers won't be binding, but again, I doubt that a Housing Association would knowingly mislead you.

(With housing associations, sometimes the bigger risk is them being incompetent, rather than being dishonourable.)

youth_leader

I would go formal as there is a time limit. @edddy very kindly helped me to try to help my elderly aunt extend her lease, but as I'm 350 miles away, I only got half the story.  I tried to start the process informally for her last May, and spoke directly to her freeholder.  

It seems her freeholder did agree to accepting £9K verbally for the lease extension, then changed her mind and told her solicitor she wanted £10K,  back in December.  I had promised my aunt I would pay her freeholder's solicitor costs, and sent my aunt the £850, which she sent to her solicitor as a cheque. My aunt has still not heard or received anything about it.  

nat160

eddddy said:

nat160 said:

Thanks for this, yes own the flat outright - have got some initial indication of the process and costs from Clarion and informal route seems simpler, but want to see if there's any potenital pitfalls from someone who's already been through the process 

If a freeholder is 'nasty' there are many tricks they can play on you with an informal lease extension, for example...

• Increasing the price at the last moment before contracts are signed
• Stringing you along for months or years pretending that they'll agree to a lease extension - but they have no intention of doing so

But I very much doubt that a housing association would play those kind of tricks.

You can ask them questions like:

• It they grant an informal lease extension, will it be on identical terms to a statutory lease extension?
• Will they want to make any changes to the lease - apart from reducing ground rent to zero, and extending it by 90 years?

Their answers won't be binding, but again, I doubt that a Housing Association would knowingly mislead you.

(With housing associations, sometimes the bigger risk is them being incompetent, rather than being dishonourable.)

That's really helpful, will ask and see what they say, thanks for your advice!

nat160

youth_leader said:

I would go formal as there is a time limit. @edddy very kindly helped me to try to help my elderly aunt extend her lease, but as I'm 350 miles away, I only got half the story.  I tried to start the process informally for her last May, and spoke directly to her freeholder.  

It seems her freeholder did agree to accepting £9K verbally for the lease extension, then changed her mind and told her solicitor she wanted £10K,  back in December.  I had promised my aunt I would pay her freeholder's solicitor costs, and sent my aunt the £850, which she sent to her solicitor as a cheque. My aunt has still not heard or received anything about it.  

So sorry to hear that's been your experience, I know that there are lots of reforms coming over the next few years so hopefully this will get easier, but we want to move this year so we're on a tight deadline! As @edddy says above my freeholder is a housing association so hopefully there'd be less messing around. 

October22Mover

I'm about to extend a lease in a local authority property and one thing my solicitor advised is that some councils insist on going down the statutory path - so worth finding out if that could be the same with an HA.

In the end I went for the statutory option although it increases the legal fees and could take longer, as it just has more certainty in the process. Once it's started you know you will be able to extend the lease and how long for.