Anyone extending a leasehold at the moment?
Discussion
About 6 months ago I bought a flat with 82 years remaining, intending to extend the lease after 2 years. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform means I now don't need to wait 2 years before extending so I'm thinking of doing it soon.
As I understand it currently you can extend by 90 years, but the government are going to change this to 990 years at some point in the near future, and make the process easier and cheaper. There doesn't seem to be a defined timeline though.
The flat would be worth about £180k with the extended lease and has a ground rent of £10 per year, which looks like it will cost about £3k-£4k using an on line calculator.
Am I best waiting until the 990 year extensions become law, or starting the process now and maybe just getting a 90 year extension? I suspect the value difference between a 172 (82 + 90) year lease and a 990 year lease is very little so I'm not shooting my self in the foot doing it now. Alternatively I could ask for the 990 lease now.
Is anyone else extending a lease and finding Freeholders are receptive to a 990 lease before it becomes law?
Its my first time extending a lease and will be using a specialist solicitor. These guys have been recomended before on PH so will probably use them rather than my conveyancing solicitors.
https://www.apassociates.org/
As I understand it currently you can extend by 90 years, but the government are going to change this to 990 years at some point in the near future, and make the process easier and cheaper. There doesn't seem to be a defined timeline though.
The flat would be worth about £180k with the extended lease and has a ground rent of £10 per year, which looks like it will cost about £3k-£4k using an on line calculator.
Am I best waiting until the 990 year extensions become law, or starting the process now and maybe just getting a 90 year extension? I suspect the value difference between a 172 (82 + 90) year lease and a 990 year lease is very little so I'm not shooting my self in the foot doing it now. Alternatively I could ask for the 990 lease now.
Is anyone else extending a lease and finding Freeholders are receptive to a 990 lease before it becomes law?
Its my first time extending a lease and will be using a specialist solicitor. These guys have been recomended before on PH so will probably use them rather than my conveyancing solicitors.
https://www.apassociates.org/
balham123 said:
Over 80 years remaining on lease, no marriage value is due, so it should be cheaper if you do it before you pass that threshold.
No idea what the govt is proposing, but I would be inclined to get on with it. Definitely ask for 999 years, they can only say no
Yes marriage value was my motivation for doing it now. No idea what the govt is proposing, but I would be inclined to get on with it. Definitely ask for 999 years, they can only say no
990 years seems better but my assumption is once I have the current lease extended by 90 years it doesn't make much difference. It could always be cheaply extended again even if not by me.
ewanjp said:
Def do it now - anyone looking to buy in the future will just see 'long lease' in their mind. They can then chose to take whatever the future hit is if they fancy it - as you say over 80 years and it's much cheaper.
I've contacted the lease extension specialists in my original post so hopefully they will come back with the same opinion. Even with the shorter extension and me never selling it, it would still have about 150 years remaining when I die!The ideal scenario would be them saying they can probably get the 990 year lease before it becomes law. It would make zero difference to the freeholder.
Fortunately the freeholder seems to be a large but decent decent company. We get a full breakdown of what the service charge pays for, and it's all reasonable and value for money. Hopefully they will be reasonable with the lease.
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