Extend Your Lease guide discussion

Hiya,

we need an advice about the lease extension agreement. The extension terms of the lease have been agreed with a freeholder privately (no surveyor or solicitor have been involved then). The freeholder has instructed his solicitor about the agreement (by additional 99 years), which we have received. It consists of 8 pages and is called "Lease by way of extension of the existing term", which sounds fine to us. However, inside it states "99 years from the date of this deed", "the unexpired residue of the term created by the Original Lease is now vested in the Tenant", "This Lease is granted pursuant to Section 56 of the Act being a new Lease made in substitution of the Original Lease", which sounds to us that it is to 99 years. None of us are lawyers in our family and obviously despite how we agreed with freeholder it is best to hire a solicitor. However, I have following questions (as Im thinking that maybe there is still a misunderstanding between a freeholder and his solicitor, or purely solicitor mistake (as it seems he has been busy with other things and he had to be chased to get an agreement done):
1. I have googled a typical lease extension agreement which looks pretty straightforward, what Ive seen there is a one page agreement stating "The agreement certifies that the parties agree to extend the lease agreement for an additional time period of starting on , 20_ and ending on...". Are lease extension agreements this simple? Which I think they should be. Thank you.

We have a flat with 73 years left on lease. The ground rent is £60pa.
We wrote directly to Managing agent/Freeholder asking to extend the lease. A flat within the same block sold in December with a new 125 year lease for £185k. We employed a local chartered surveyor to carry out a valuation and he estimated that a full 90 year extension should be in the region of 8 - 10k plus costs. A new 125 year lease is equivalent to only a 52 year extension. So we were expecting a cost of around 5k for this.

The freeholder has come back offering the new 125 year lease for £12,850 plus costs plus an increased ground rent which then doubles every 15 years. We feel this is far too much. We counter offered 5k but they have ignored our letter and refuse to engage with us by email or by phone.

We have since discovered that another owner in the block, attempting a lease extension 2 years ago on her 2 bed flat, was also offered a silly price and ended up serving notice and going to the Tribunal. She ended up paying around £8.5k for the full 90 years and no ground rent, but hers was a 2 bedroom flat so more valuable.

The big unknown here is how the rapid increase in property values will have affected the calculation. She sold her 2 bed flat the following year with the much extended lease for more than we believe our 1 bed flat is currently worth, so my bottom line question is would it be fair to expect our outcome to be similar to hers should we get to tribunal, and is it worth all the costs involved?

Sorry for length of post!

What about the lease on a house? we pay 35 ground rent per annum, is it the same idea/costs as a flat?

Thank you for the advice

Take a look at this
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4754355&highlight=

In short make an offer but you are better off getting a valuation asap from a local qualified surveyor on the value as is and with a lease extensions before spending any more time and money.