91 years on lease

[Chilly]

Hi all,

First off, forgive me if this thread is in the wrong place - my query is part buying/selling/legal!

So I am so I am thinking about putting an offer on a flat in London which has 91 years left on the lease. The agent has described this as a 'good' lease (as I am sure he would), although I am not entirely convinced...

I know that 80 years is the critical point at which extending it becomes more expensive because of the marriage value which has to be calculated etc; however, what I’d like to know is will I find the property difficult to sell in, say, five years’ time when it has 85 years left on the lease and is approaching this threshold?

Also, should I want to extend it (obviously before then), how much would it roughly cost? The flat is worth £275,000 and service charges are £650 per annum.

Any advice on any of these points would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks all!

[Richard Webster]

Go to Welcome to the Leasehold Advisory Service scroll to the bottom of the page and then click on "Use our lease extension calculator."

You will need to find out how much the ground rent is - this is the profit the landlord keeps, as opposed to the service charge which pays for maintenance and insurance of the building etc.

Then you can put in the start date of the lease term (not the date the lease is dated!) and the amount of the ground rent and the calculator will give you a ball park for extending the lease now. You can get an idea of what it would cost to extend when there is 85 years left by adding 6 years on the start date in the calculator. Of course that will only give you figures based on present property values.

In the real world the estate agent is not telling lies - most people would not be very concerned at a 91 year lease and it wouldn't be worth less than a 125 or longer lease on the open market with average buyers. If you are savvy though you go for as long a lease as you can find. Market values assume average buyers aren't savvy on this point!