St James leases on domestic deteriorating in value. if your lease has approximately 90 years remaining, you should start considering the need for a lease extension. If lease term dips under eighty years, you will then have to pay 50% of the property's 'marriage value' in addition to the usual cost of the lease extension to your landlord. Marriage value is the amount of additional value that a lease extension will add to the property. Flat owners in St James will mostly qualify for a lease extension; however a solicitor will check your eligibility. In some cases you may not be entitled. There are also strict deadlines and formalities to comply with once the process is triggered so it’s wise to be guided by a conveyancer during the process.
It is conventional wisdom that a residential leasehold with in excess of 100 years remaining is worth roughly the same as a freehold. Where an further ninety years added to any lease with more than 45 years remaining, the premises will be equivalent in value to a freehold for many years ahead.
| Lender | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Birmingham Midshires | Minimum 70 years from the date of the mortgage. |
| Godiva Mortgages | 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. |
| Halifax | Minimum 70 years from the date of the mortgage. |
| National Westminster Bank | Mortgage term plus 30 years. For Shared Ownership, the remaining term of the lease must be at least 30 years plus the term of the mortgage at the outset of the mortgage. |
| 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 conveyancers that we work with undertake St James 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 conveyancer we work with provide it.
After lengthy discussions with the freeholder of her garden flat in St James, Kayleigh initiated the lease extension process as the eighty year deadline was swiftly coming. The lease extension was concluded in May 2010. The freeholder’s fees were kept to an absolute minimum.
Mr and Mrs. K Williams acquired a purpose-built apartment in St James in September 1997. We are asked if we could estimate the compensation to the landlord would likely be for a 90 year extension to my lease. Comparative properties in St James with 100 year plus lease were in the region of £280,000. The mid-range amount of ground rent was £45 billed annually. The lease lapsed on 2 September 2096. Given that there were 70 years as a residual term we calculated the premium to the landlord to extend the lease to be between £12,400 and £14,200 not including legals.
An example of a Lease Extension case for a St James property is Flats 12A & 19, Evelyn Mansions Carlisle Place in June 2009. The Tribunal held that the price to be paid for the new lease of Flat 12A is £168,824, For the other flat the price was set at £169,110 This case affected 2 flats. The remaining number of years on the lease was 56 years.