When it comes to long leasehold premises in Greenhithe, you are in fact renting it for a certain amount of time. Modern flat leases are usually granted for 99 years or 125. Many leasehold owners are unconcerned as this seems like a lengthy period of time, you may consider extending the lease sooner as opposed to later. Accepted thinking is that the shorter the lease is the cost of extending the lease increases markedly notably when there are fewer than eighty years left. Residents in Greenhithe with a lease nearing 81 years left should seriously consider extending it sooner as opposed to later. When the lease term has less than eighty years left, under the current statute the freeholder can calculate and charge a larger premium, assessed on a technical multiplication, known as “marriage value” which is due.
It is conventional wisdom that a residential leasehold with in excess of 100 years unexpired lease term is worth roughly the equivalent as a freehold. Where an further ninety years added to any lease with more than 35 years left, the premises will be equivalent in value to a freehold for decades to come.
| Lender | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Bank of Scotland | Minimum 70 years from the date of the mortgage. |
| Barnsley Building Society | 60 years from the date of the mortgage application subject to 35 years remaining at the end of the mortgage term. |
| Chelsea Building Society | 85 years from the date of completion of the mortgage. Please ensure that you explain the implications of a short term lease to the borrower. |
| Coventry Building Society | A minimum of 70 years unexpired lease at completion for all scheme types apart from Lifetime Mortgages (Equity Release), which require a minimum unexpired term of 80 years at completion. |
| Skipton Building Society | 85 years from the date of completion of the mortgage For Buy to Let cases: - lettings must not breach any of the lessee’s covenants; and - consent of the lessor to lettings must be obtained if necessary |
The lawyers that we work with handle Greenhithe lease extensions and help protect your position. A lease extension can be arranged to be completed to coincide with a change of ownership so the costs of the lease extension are paid for using part of the sale proceeds. You really do need expert legal advice in this difficult and technical area of law. The lawyer we work with provide it.
Ollie owned a studio flat in Greenhithe on the market with a lease of just over fifty eight years remaining. Ollie informally approached his freeholder being a well known London-based freehold company for a lease extension. The landlord indicated a willingness to grant an extension taking the lease to 125 years on the basis of a new rent initially set at £200 per annum and doubled every twenty five years thereafter. No ground rent would be due on a lease extension were Ollie to invoke his statutory right. Ollie procured expert legal guidance and secured an acceptable deal without resorting to tribunal and ending up with a market value flat.
Last May we were e-mailed by Dr K Davis , who acquired a purpose-built flat in Greenhithe in January 2007. We are asked if we could approximate the compensation to the landlord would likely be for a ninety year lease extension. Similar properties in Greenhithe with an extended lease were valued around £250,400. The average amount of ground rent was £65 billed per annum. The lease end date was in 2090. Given that there were 64 years as a residual term we estimated the premium to the landlord for the lease extension to be within £19,000 and £22,000 exclusive of expenses.
An example of a Lease Extension case for a Greenhithe residence is Various @ Colombus Square in January 2012. the Tribunal calculated the premiums to be paid for new leases for each of the flats in Mariners Walk to be £3822 and the premium to be paid for the new lease of 2 Knights Court to be £4439. This case was in relation to 13 flats. The unexpired residue of the current lease was 76 years.