renewing a lease on a flat £35k?

[jesta1865]

hi all, sorry if this is in the wrong place, but the wife and i are looking to downsize, from a house to a flat and reduce our mortgage by nearly 50%. various reasons why this makes sense to our situation.

so found a 3 bed flat, up for only 180k, great road, in a very desirable area, close to shops and mainline rail etc.

the catch, is leasehold is only 59 years (flats and leasehold etc are all new to me only had houses)

if we want to renew the lease they want an extra 35k, is this excessive as I saw someone talking about not paying 14k for a renewal on here the other day (sure it was on here).

i'm off to google the situation with flats, but this obviously is quite a chunk and we would have to do the place from top to bottom.

if you need to know the area to make a comment it's off Leigh Broadway, Leigh on sea, Essex.

cheers

[SystemParanoia]

get a different flat.
Lots of choice everywhere!

[Collectingbrass]

There's a thread here with details of lease extensions:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=164...

You probably wont get a mortgage with a 59 year lease so will need to extend it. The costs of doing so probably won't make it worth while as they really need to be extended more than 80 years out.

[jesta1865]

SystemParanoia said:

get a different flat.
Lots of choice everywhere!

that's my view, i am trying to find out if they will take an offer on the lease renewal, which would be for 99 years apparently.

[jesta1865]

Collectingbrass said:

There's a thread here with details of lease extensions:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=164...

You probably wont get a mortgage with a 59 year lease so will need to extend it. The costs of doing so probably won't make it worth while as they really need to be extended more than 80 years out.

thanks, i read that earlier and used the calculator, seems the price for renewal is a bit over, but not way out that i hoped.

think i will be doing a lot of reading about leasehold etc, what an outdated way of buying property.

thanks

[kingston12]

59 years is considered a short lease these days so it will be expensive.

What you need to compare is the total cost of buying the flat and the lease extension to other similar flats in the area. The cost of extending the lease must at be compensated in the asking price otherwise you definitely need to look elsewhere.

The other factor to take into account is that new buyers are normally locked out of extending the lease for two years after purchase. I am not sure if this is still the case, but it is worth checking because the cost of the extension will start rising very quickly each year with a lease of this length.