Fees for extending the years on a council property lease

sidewayssyd

My daughter is the leaseholder and owner of an apartment owned by Birmingham City Councill. The lease has 2 or 3 years to run but we're aware that paying the counsel to extend the years of the lease will be advantageous when she comes to sell the apartment in years to come. She's asked the council and they've come back with an extension to about 100 years (I can't get hold of her as I write this but it might have been 200 years) and the council's fees are over £2000 plus about £500 solicitors fees and about £600 surveyors fees. So first question is, do these figures seem reasonable? OK, the council has to charge a fee for this administrative process, but £2000? A solicitor? A surveyor? I know there is absolutely nothing we can do about these figures but we feel it's a complete rip-off. Second question - the bloke she spoke to said you'll also have your own solicitors fees. Why does she need a solicitor? To make sure the council isn't ripping her off? There is no aspect of a legal incumbent on her in the process of the council extending a lease. We can't see how there is any need for one. Yet a call to a Birmingham solicitor said £1000 please. What the hell is going on here? Comments welcomed please.

eddddy

sidewayssyd said:

The lease has 2 or 3 years to run but we're aware that paying the counsel to extend the years of the lease will be advantageous when she comes to sell the apartment in years to come. 

It's very unlikely that the lease has 2 or 3 years left. (If it did, it would be very expensive to extend.)

At a guess, it may have 82 or 83 years left, and it's sensible to extend a lease before it drops down to 80 years.

sidewayssyd said:

She's asked the council and they've come back with an extension to about 100 years (I can't get hold of her as I write this but it might have been 200 years)

Councils usually insist on Statutory Lease extensions. That would add 90 years to the length of the lease. (So if there is currently 82 years left, it would be extended to 172 years.)

sidewayssyd said:

...the council's fees are over £2000 plus about £500 solicitors fees and about £600 surveyors fees. So first question is, do these figures seem reasonable?  OK, the council has to charge a fee for this administrative process, but £2000?

Your daughter has to pay all of the following:

• The price of the lease extension
• The council's solicitor's fees
• The council's surveyor's fees
• Her own solicitor's fees
• Her own surveyor's fees 

£500 sounds very cheap for the council's solicitor's fees
£600 sounds reasonable for the council's surveyor's fees

Is the £2000 the price of the lease extension? If so, that sounds very cheap.

(Or if the £2000 really is a administration fee, that sounds strange. You should find out more about that.)


£1000 for your daughter's own solicitor sounds about right - but she could get more quotes.

If the price of the lease extension is likely to be only £2,000, maybe your daughter doesn't need to bother with a surveyor. If the price is likely to be £5,000 or £10,000 or more, it might be worthwhile employing a surveyor.

loubel

Yes, your daughter needs a solicitor to represent her. Do you really mean that there are only 2 or 3 years left on the lease? The cost of extending should be close to the cost of buying a new flat as it would be pretty much worthless at that point...

ExEstateAgent

If the lease only has 2 or 3 years left to run, you do realise that means in 2 or 3 years time your daughter will be homeless unless she extends the lease! 

sidewayssyd

"only 2 or 3 years left". This proves you shouldn't rely on memory. Eddddy, you're exactly right..there are about 82 years left. She bought the property 4 years ago and at the time, we said she had to extend the lease in 2 or 3 years time, so that's where I got my '2 or 3 years' from.
Thanks to you all for pointing out my error!
And thanks also Edddy for your comments on the figures the council have given us. I didn't get those wrong, so it seems like we're getting a good deal. They said if we left it to when 80 years are left, the £2000 will double at least. 
Only thing I'm still not clear on is why she needs a solicitor.

Jude57

sidewayssyd said:

"only 2 or 3 years left". This proves you shouldn't rely on memory. Eddddy, you're exactly right..there are about 82 years left. She bought the property 4 years ago and at the time, we said she had to extend the lease in 2 or 3 years time, so that's where I got my '2 or 3 years' from.
Thanks to you all for pointing out my error!
And thanks also Edddy for your comments on the figures the council have given us. I didn't get those wrong, so it seems like we're getting a good deal. They said if we left it to when 80 years are left, the £2000 will double at least. 
Only thing I'm still not clear on is why she needs a solicitor.

She needs independent legal advice to protect her interests and those of her mortgage lender if any. It's also so that she can't later raise any complaint about the process or claim that there was any aspect she didn't fully understand, in effect protecting the Council against any legal claim by your daughter.