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EXTENDING YOUR LEASE (/)
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Extending your Lease - A Layman's guide to buying and owning Leasehold Property in the UK
Home (http://leaseextensionuk.info/) What is leasehold? (/what-is-
Lease Extension; A guide to buying and owning Leasehold property
leasehold.html)
How we got here – The
Hi, my name is Paul Fletcher from Lancaster in the north of England. Over the last
History of Leasehold
year I went through the process of lease extension on my flat, when I began
(/leasehold-history.html)
researching the procedure, I couldn't find a simple no-frills 'How-To' guide for the
Getting Started - A
process of extending the lease, so I decided to write one.
Leasehold FAQ (/buying-alease-faq.html) Buying a Leasehold Property (/leasehold-property.html)
You'll find the leasehold system of property ownership to be archaic, unwieldy and a money-go-round for the various solicitors, valuers and freeholders who do very nicely out of the system. Interestingly, leasehold flat ownership is almost only found in the UK and some far-flung former colonies such as Ghana. Places like the USA, France and Australia have the superior Condominium (Condo) style of
How to Extend your Lease
collective property ownership, where you own your flat and a share in the building in-perpetuity
(/lease-extension-
(forever).
calculator.html) Leasehold Enfranchisement and other options (/leaseholdenfranchisement.html)
With leasehold, what you actually own is a piece of paper giving you effective ownership of the property for a set period of time, i.e. the remaining term on the lease. The lease can be extended, but a leaseholder should be fully aware of how long his lease has to run and what the implications are for owning, buying and selling his property: that is what I have tried to cover on this website.
Leasehold Glossary
This guide was written for leasehold flat owners in England and Wales, although the general
(/marriage-value.html)
principles would apply to leasehold house or flat owners UK-wide.
Useful Sites (/leaseholdresources.html) About Me - Disclaimer (/website-disclaimer.html)
My Property/Lease My flat had 85 years remaining on the lease, I chose to extend the lease for a further 90 Years (i.e. to 175 years) which cost me £3,900 and took about 10 months from start to finish. My situation was that I needed to sell the property, and I wanted a long lease to give potential buyers peace of mind (and also to give me the full market value of my flat). Having 85 years remaining on a lease sounds like a lot, however I'd suggest that once a lease reaches the 95 year (remaining) mark, there starts to be an effect - albeit marginal at first - on the resale value of the property. When I sold the flat this year, the new longer lease added around £6k to the value of the property and probably helped me get a quicker sale. See How to Extend your lease (/lease-extension-calculator.html) for more on the issues involved in extending. I would sum up the significant lease extension milestones as follows: If you have 100+ years remaining on your lease, you don't need to extend and I wouldn't worry about it at this stage; If you have less than 95 years remaining on your lease and are planning to sell the property, think about extending as a means of pushing up the market value. If you have 80-85 years remaining, you need to take action now to avoid Marriage Fees (/marriage-value.html) (an extra fee payable when you extend). If you have less than 70 years remaining, potential buyers will have difficulty getting a mortgage on your property. You need to extend. It will be expensive. There is a more detailed discussion of how the remaining term on your lease affects your property on the Buying a Leasehold Property (/leasehold-property.html) page, the analysis is complicated somewhat by the fact that a new buyer cannot extend his lease within the first 2 years of ownership.
Your Leasehold options Pretty much every leaseholder has the right to extend their lease under the 1993 Leasehold Reform Act and if you have