Lease extension at same time as completion?

[polly]

Hello

We are buying a leasehold flat with 72 years on the lease and we have decided to extend the lease by another 90 years, costing us £7500.

The vendor's solicitors are drawing up the agreement but my solicitor has suggested that the leasehold should be done before we purchase the property and we should buy the property with the leasehold extension already in place.

I have googled the topic and it has been suggested that the leasehold extension should be done just before completion but is there anything at all that can go wrong with this? HSBC are also only willing to loan on the offer price, not taking the lease extension into account as they consider it a separate thing (this is not a problem because we have a high deposit but I just want to make sure we are protected)

Thank you for any advice offered in advance

[Richard Webster]

It is perfectly possible to do it all at the same time - see walkthrough from a seller's solicitor's point of view here: Lease extension - HouseWeb Discussion Forum

[twitter@salispropnews]

72 years...the seller should really be extending it at their cost, and so they should get it registered before you buy it too. the registration takes very little time by the land registry and it also means you do not get requisitions by the land registry is the extension is some how defective.

no hard and fast rule, but that is what i would look to as a starting point.

good luck.

[Richard Webster]

72 years...the seller should really be extending it at their cost, and so they should get it registered before you buy it too. the registration takes very little time by the land registry and it also means you do not get requisitions by the land registry is the extension is some how defective.

Obviously better if seller does it but it is quite likely that the seller hasn't got he spare cash sculling around with which to pay the landlord so he would need the money from you to do it- hence my suggestion of doing the two together.