Owning a apartment usually means owning a lease of the property, this is a ‘time-limited’ interest becoming shorter every day. The lease will normally be granted for a prescribed period of time , ordinarily 99 or 125 years, although we have come across longer and shorter terms in Blackfriars. Inevitably, the term of lease remaining shortens as time goes by. This may pass by relatively unnoticed when the flat or house needs to be disposed of or refinanced. The shorter the lease the less it is worth and the more expensive it will be to obtain a lease extension. Eligible long lease owners in Blackfriars have the right to extend the lease for a further 90 years under the 1993 Leasehold Reform Act. Do give careful attention before delaying your Blackfriars lease extension. Putting off the cost now only increases the price you will ultimately have to pay for a lease extension
It is conventional wisdom that a property with over one hundred years unexpired lease term is worth roughly the equivalent as a freehold. Where an additional ninety years added to any lease with more than 30 years remaining, the property will be equivalent in value to a freehold for many years in the future.
| Lender | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Barnsley Building Society | |
| Nationwide Building Society | |
| TSB | |
| The Mortgage Works | |
| Royal Bank of Scotland |
Regardless of whether you are a tenant or a freeholder in Blackfriars,the lease extension experts that we work with will always be happy to discuss any residential leasehold matters and offer you the benefit of their experience and the close ties they enjoy with Blackfriars valuers.
During the course of the last few months David, came critically near to the eighty-year threshold with the lease on his one bedroom apartment in Blackfriars. Having bought his property twenty years ago, the lease term was of little importance. Thankfully, he noticed he needed to take action soon on a lease extension. David extended the lease just under the wire in March. David and the freeholder ultimately settled on a premium of £6,000 . If he had missed the deadline, the sum would have escalated by a minimum £1,000.
In 2012 we were contacted by Dr Tia Wood who, having was assigned a lease of a ground floor apartment in Blackfriars in August 2007. We are asked if we could approximate the compensation to the landlord could be to prolong the lease by a further 90 years. Identical properties in Blackfriars with 100 year plus lease were worth £200,800. The average ground rent payable was £65 collected annually. The lease end date was in 2086. Taking into account 60 years unexpired we calculated the compensation to the freeholder to extend the lease to be between £20,900 and £24,200 plus fees.
An example of a Lease Extension matter before the tribunal for a Blackfriars flat is Flat 89 Trinity Court Grays Inn Road in February 2013. the Tribunal found that the premium to be paid by the tenant on the grant of a new lease, in accordance with section 56 and Schedule 13 to the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 should be £36,229. This case related to 1 flat. The unexpired lease term was 66.8 years.