Statutory Lease Extensions

Extending your lease will increase the market value of your property. A longer lease could also make it easier to sell or remortgage your property, or alleviate the burden of ground rent payments. Our team of lease extension experts are here to provide comprehensive assistance at each stage, ensuring you maximise the potential of your property.

We deal with all aspects of lease extensions including:

• Reviewing your lease and confirming the remaining term
• Discussing the options available and recommending a surveyor to advise on the premium
• Drafting and serving a formal notice of claim (known as a section 42 notice) on the competent landlords and dealing any counter notice (known as a section 45 notice) received
• Dealing with your lenders requirements if applicable
• Reviewing and negotiating the new lease
• Dealing with completion and registering the new lease at the Land Registry

DID YOU KNOW
We are the most accredited, and most reviewed Solicitors in Yorkshire.

Whether you’re a tenant looking to extend your lease or a landlord seeking to grant an extension, our tailored advice and meticulous attention to detail will provide you with the clarity and confidence you need.

We have explained some of these issues further in this document.

Ison Harrison Solicitors are a full service law firm based across 18+ offices and acting for businesses and individuals nationwide. We pride ourselves on providing an ‘aims-focused’, holistic service tailored towards helping business owners and individuals to achieve their goals through strong legal compliance and support by our Partner led team.

As well as providing first class commercial advice to our clients, we are also a leading property law firm with statistics published by the Land Registry indicating that we are in the top 20 law firms in the country based on the volume of property transactions handled.

You will be eligible for a lease extension if you have been the registered owner of the flat for at least 2 years and the original term of the lease was for over 21 years.

Under the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (1993 Act), if you are an eligible tenant you are entitled to a further 90 years added to the remaining term of your lease.

On completion of the lease extension the ground rent will be reduced to peppercorn (which is £1 if demanded).

The premium of the lease extension will need to be calculated by a surveyor; we cannot provide any advice on the premium. There are a few factors considered when calculating the premium such as the remaining term of the lease, the ground rent payable and the value of the flat.

Once you have instructed us and obtained a valuation, we would serve a formal notice known as a section 42 notice on your landlord containing the premium you propose to pay for the lease extension.

Your landlord would then serve a counter notice within 2 months confirming whether the claim is accepted or not accepted and detailing the premium they are willing to accept.

Following service of the landlord’s counter notice the surveyors get 6 months to negotiate the premium and terms of the lease extension.

If a premium cannot be agreed in 6 months an application would need to be made to the First Tier Property Tribunal to protect your position. If we get to this stage, we will advise you what the additional legal and surveyor’s costs would be.

In addition to the premium you would be liable to pay the following:

1. Your legal fees and disbursements including a Land Registry fee;
2. Your surveyors fees;
3. The landlords legal fees and disbursements;
4. The landlords surveyors fees;
5. The management companies legal fees if applicable;
6. Stamp Duty Land Tax if appliable.

Once the landlord receives the section 42 notice, they have 21 days to request evidence of the leaseholders right to a formal lease extension and 2 months to serve their section 45 counter notice.

Once the counter notice has been served the leaseholder has 6 months to negotiate the premium before they must apply to the First Tier Property Tribunal.

Following agreement of the premium, the parties have 2 months to finalise completion.

After completion the new lease can take between 12 -24 months to be registered at the Land Registry.

Start here to check if you are eligable for a lease extension.

Ison Harrison commercial property department is a large and experienced team who can deal with a wide range of client’s needs including:

• Sales and purchases
• Commercial leases for landlords and tenants
• Development work
• Title splitting and refinancing
• Commercial refinancing and secured lending
• Site acquisitions and development schemes including plot sales
• Lease extensions and leasehold enfranchisement
• Landlord and Management Company services