Lease extensions
The following information is for leaseholders who want to extend their Lease.
If you are a freeholder and have received a claim from a leaseholder to extend their lease, we can help – please contact us for more information.
Why extend your lease?
A short lease causes two problems.
- The shorter your lease, the more difficult it becomes to sell your property. The majority of mortgage lenders will refuse to lend on properties with a lease term of less than 70 years.
- Leaseholders with a lease below 80 years face an additional cost to extend their lease. This is referred to as “marriage value” and represents the increased value of the property after the lease is extended.
Extending your lease before the term falls below 80 years will mean you avoid these problems.
The two lease extension routes
If you want to extend your lease, there are two possible routes: statutory and non-statutory.
Before extending your lease (whether under the statutory or non-statutory route), it is important that we review your lease and advise you on the two routes available and which route may be most appropriate for you given your circumstances.
Our Litigation Team will deal with this aspect of the lease extension for you and tend to offer a fixed fee for this advice, which is confirmed upon enquiry. Once we have reviewed your lease and advised you on your options, you will need to decide whether to proceed with a statutory or non-statutory lease extension.
Fee: A fixed fee of £200 plus VAT plus disbursements of around £15 for obtaining official copies of the leasehold title, freehold title, and the lease from the Land Registry.
Once we have reviewed your lease and advised you on your options, you will need to decide whether to proceed with a statutory or non-statutory lease extension.
non-statutory lease extension.
A non-statutory lease extension occurs when a leaseholder agrees to lease extension terms with their freeholder.
If you have already reached out to your Freeholder and obtained an offer, then our Litigation Team can advise you on the offer, and if necessary undertake discussions with your freeholder on your behalf to negotiate more favourable terms.
Once terms have been agreed with your freeholder, or – if, upon receiving our advice, you are happy to proceed with your freeholder’s offer – we pass your matter to our Residential Property Team. They will complete the lease and register it at the Land Registry.
statutory lease extension.
As an owner of a leaseholder property, you have a statutory right to extend your lease, and can do so using the statutory route. This means you can serve a notice on your freeholder (referred to as a section 42 notice) requesting a lease extension.
We process statutory lease extensions in the following stages:
Stage 1 (always necessary):
- Drafting the section 42 notice.
- Liaising with your surveyor in respect of the premium.
- Serving the notice on your Freeholder.
- Proving title (if requested by the Landlord) and dealing with any requests for a deposit on account of the premium by the Landlord.
Stage 2 (frequently necessary):
- If your landlord provides a counter-notice and does not agree to the terms we supply, we will advise you, take your instructions and negotiate with the Landlord or their representatives to agree on terms.
Fee estimate: up to £500 plus VAT, depending on the scale of negotiations.
Stage 3 (rarely necessary):
- If you and your landlord are unable to reach an agreement, we will apply to the First Tier Property Tribunal for determination.
- We will deal with directions made by the Tribunal and attend proceedings if necessary.
Please note that you should expect to cover your Landlord’s legal costs and surveyor’s fees. These fees must be reasonable and our work includes negotiating those fees on your behalf.
Like with a non-statutory lease extension, once terms are agreed, the matter passes to our Residential Property Team who will agree the draft lease with your Freeholder and complete the extension.
Typical timescales
The average Lease Extension claim takes around 3-9 months, provided the other party engages promptly.
Lease extensions – important update
New legislation means big changes to the lease extension process. There are several changes coming.
For now, the key change is that you no longer need to own your property for two years before you can extend your lease.
When the rest of the reforms come into effect, they are set to include:
- 999-year lease extensions (instead of 90 years).
- Abolishing “marriage value”, which currently increases the cost of extending a lease when the term falls below 80 years.
So, should you extend now or wait?
- If your lease has more than 80 years left and your ground rent is fairly low, it may be cheaper to extend under the current rules.
- If your lease has fewer than 80 years remaining or you pay a higher ground rent, you may benefit from the upcoming reforms.
There is no clear indication when this new legislation will come into effect, and an ongoing legal challenge from freeholders could delay its implementation, potentially for several years.
Every situation is different, and timing your lease extension carefully could save you a significant amount of money. Our team can guide you through the options and help you decide whether now is the right time to act.
