Lease Extensions Solicitors Liverpool & North West London
An existing lease can be extended under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993. This is a complex area of law, which is why obtaining specialist legal advice is invaluable. At Gregory Abrams Davidson Solicitors, our property law team can help with all aspects of lease extensions, providing expert guidance at every step. To secure the future value of your property, contact us now.
Can anyone extend their lease?
The 1993 Act allows a qualifying tenant to surrender their existing lease and be granted a new 90-year lease on payment of a premium to their landlord. As the leaseholder, you are legally entitled to extend your lease if the term of the original lease was 21 years or more, and you have been registered as the property owner for at least two years.
Preliminary matters
Before proceeding, you must establish where the freehold is registered at the Land Registry. If there is more than one landlord in a block of leasehold flats, steps may need to be taken to identify the landlord. In addition, the landlord may not own the freehold which means he will not have the power to grant a new lease.
It is therefore important to identify the landlord and establish who owns the freehold so that the notice to extend the lease (known as a Section 42 Notice) can be served on the correct person or persons. The landlord has two months to respond to the Section 42 Notice.
When is the best time to extend a lease?
It is advisable to extend your lease when the current lease has more than 80 years left to run. If you are planning on selling your property with a short lease, you run the risk of facing difficulties with potential buyers (such as negotiations over the asking price).
It can also cost you considerably more money to extend a lease that has less than 80 years due to ‘marriage value’. Marriage value is the increase of the property’s value from the current lease to the new extended lease, and the freeholder is entitled to 50% of this when a lease has less than 80 years left. If there is more than 80 years left on the lease, no marriage value will be paid to the freeholder.
How much will it cost?
If approved, you will have to pay a lump sum to the landlord for extending the lease. There will be costs relating to solicitors and surveyors, and other additional costs may include Stamp Duty Land Tax, Land Registry fees and search fees.
Other considerations
It will be important to check that the terms of the new lease are compatible with any other leases in the same block of flats. In addition, the rights of the occupiers in adjoining properties must be taken into account as these may have changed since the original lease was granted, for example, in relation to communal areas or parking arrangements.
Contact our Lease Extension Conveyancing Lawyers in Liverpool & North West London
Our expert team of conveyancing lawyers can help negotiate the most favourable of terms for a lease extension. We will work to ensure that the process is carried out with the minimum amount of delay and as stress-free as possible. Contact our conveyancing lawyers today.
