How to Extend Your Lease - By: Tim Bishop

In order to qualify for a leasehold extension on your flat you must satisfy the following requirements: the original lease must have been granted for over 21 years, the lease should be for residential use and you must have owned the flat for a minimum of 2 years. You do not have to have been in occupation during these 2 years of ownership. Note that general rules on leasehold extensions may not necessarily apply to government or National Trust owned properties.

You can estimate how much your leasehold extension is going to cost you by looking at the length of the lease remaining, the potential value of the landlord's reversionary interest and the amount of ground rent that you are currently paying. If your lease has less than 80 years left to run then unfortunately upon extension your landlord will be entitled to take a 'marriage value' charge on top of any premium paid. This 'marriage value' is determined as being 50% of the value of the reversionary interest, which depending on the property itself can be a sizeable amount.

In order to work out how much longer remains on your lease, check the dates of the leasehold agreement carefully. For example if the agreement states that the lease commences from 1996 and it is 99 years long, then it will expire in 2095, therefore from now (2010) you have 85 years left. You should therefore be looking at extending within the next 4-5 years in order to avoid paying marriage value. Note that the date the lease actually commences is specified on the agreement made between the freeholder and original tenant. In looking at the above example, if the original tenant assigns the lease in 2002 and it has 80 years left to run, when you want to extend you will be liable for the marriage value premium to the freeholder.

To extend your lease you should take advice from an experienced leasehold enfranchisement solicitor. Your solicitor will serve the appropriate legal notice on the landlord informing him that you wish to extend the lease. The process of extending a lease is subject to stringent time scales, therefore you are best instructing a solicitor as soon as possible. Try to research your choice of solicitor well. A local one-man-band solicitor may struggle with competing workloads and may not be able to dedicate an appropriate amount of time to negotiating your leasehold extension. Prior to instructing your solicitor ask for a quote for the advice and agree a budget with them.

The landlord has 2 months in which they must respond to your notice of extension. In this time you will have to obtain a valuation of your flat. The valuation will be completed in light of the landlord's interest in the building as a whole and the rights of any other tenants. For example if your landlord owns a block of 4 flats and the other 3 tenants are applying for enfranchisement of the lease, this will not only effect the value of the leasehold for your flat, but also your chances of extending. Your solicitor should be able to recommend a high-quality surveyor. However if they cannot, the RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors) website is a good reference point to locate a surveyor in your area. When instructing a surveyor always obtain a fixed fee for the work, this fee should include an initial inspection of the property, reading the lease agreement documents and doing all relevant calculations.

When the landlord receives your extension notice he will usually serve a counter notice. This will either be 'friendly' therefore approving the extension or 'hostile' which disallows the extension. In order for the landlord to issue a hostile notice he must have a statutory valid reason. If this does happen then your solicitor will advise you on what to do next. However, usually the notice will be friendly and after this is received a period of negotiation will ensue. Both parties will negotiate the terms of the extension and the amount of premium to be paid using the information provided by the surveyor. If the landlord refuses to respond to your notice, then you are also entitled to take the request for an extension before the County Court. An extension that is agreed in this way is normally awarded on the same terms of the original lease. Therefore this is not ideal if you want to renegotiate the leasehold terms.

Once the landlord receives your notice, you will be responsible for all of the costs associated with the extension i.e. the valuation fee and legal costs. The notice will also set a date for the extension. Under statute you are entitled to receive a 90-year extension of the lease paying no ground rent. You will still have to pay a service charge as under the previous lease.

The main benefit of extending your lease is the increase in value that it will bring to your property. Due to mortgage requirements, short leases are notoriously hard to assign, therefore if you extend for a further 99 years your flat becomes much more appealing to a purchaser. Not only this, but extending efficiently i.e. before the 80 year limit approaches, gives you the peace of mind that you can extend without being liable to pay any marriage value to the landlord.

About the Author

Bonallack and Bishop are Lease Extension Solicitors with significant expertise in advising on extending a lease. Tim Bishop is senior partner at the firm, responsible for all major strategic decisions. He has grown the firm by 1000% in 13 years and has plans for continued expansion.

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Tim-Bishop/62652

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