Lease Extension Surveyor Sevenoaks
Getting a lease extension for your property in Sevenoaks has the potential to dramatically improve your earning potential from it. A lease extension has the power to enhance the value of a building and also gives you far more control and leverage when it comes to selling the property.
For help with lease extensions in Sevenoaks please email or call our team.
At Copeland Yussuf, our team of experienced lease extension surveyors in Sevenoaks can assist you in getting a fair and accurate lease extension. With our knowledge of the leasehold market in Sevenoaks and the surrounding areas in Kent, we can ensure that you’ll pay the best price for your lease extension.
We’re experts in Lease Enfranchisement, meaning we offer multiple services related to managing your leasehold property, including lease extensions. We offer a bespoke, professional and high-quality service, aiming to make the lease extension process straightforward and hassle-free.
There are a lot of potential benefits when getting a lease extension. Choosing Copeland Yussuf as your Chartered Surveyor throughout the process will ensure you reap the rewards of getting a lease extension. Contact our team in Sevenoaks to see how we can help you, or read on for more information about what we do and your rights regarding lease extensions in Sevenoaks.
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What is a lease extension?
A lease extension is a service where you can extend the length of your lease in exchange for a fee. This fee will depend on various factors surrounding your property, such as its value, but paying it could help you get more money for your property in the future.
Leaseholds expire if they reach the end of their term, with ownership passing back to the original freeholder for free. Extending your lease prolongs this from happening, adding financial security.
You have a right as the leaseholder to extend your lease, as laid out by the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (the 1993 Act). Per this act, you can add 90 years to your lease if your property is an apartment or 50 years for a house. Your freeholder cannot refuse this right for an extension; they can only push back on the price you pay.
Thankfully, due to the lease extension process being governed by the 1993 act, the price you pay for a lease extension is heavily regulated by guidelines and legislation, meaning you’ll always pay a fair price.
There is a strict process that you must follow if you want to get a lease extension in Sevenoaks, and you also need to meet specific eligibility criteria. Partnering with a lease extension surveyor will give you access to support through this process, and they’ll also be able to check your eligibility. Using Copeland Yussuf to help you through this process can save you time, money and stress.
Why should you get a lease extension in Sevenoaks?
There are many reasons why leaseholders in Sevenoaks should get a lease extension on their property. Although you have to pay your freeholder to get this, the benefits and potential earnings you can get will typically outweigh this cost, making it a worthwhile investment for your property.
The main reason why you should get a lease extension is because it can increase the value of your home. With leaseholds, the less time you have left on your lease, the lower the property’s value will be. So, if you put a property with 85 years left on its lease for sale, it will be worth far less than one with 175 years left.
This means that getting a lease extension can help you get more money for your property when you come to sell it, protecting your investment.
Another reason why now is a good time to get a lease extension is that doing so will reduce your ground rent to zero. Leasholds bought before June 2022 must pay ground rent, a payment made to the freeholder each year. This can be a large fee for some properties, costing you money to own your leasehold.
Ground rent has now been abolished on leaseholds, meaning that when you extend your lease, this is now reduced to zero. This can help you save money in the future, as it stops you from losing out on cash each annum. You’ll pay more for your lease extension the higher your ground rent is, so a surveyor can be helpful to ensure that the savings outweigh the initial cost. Removing ground rent can make it far more affordable if you plan on living in your property for a long time.
Getting a lease extension in Sevenoaks can also make it much easier for you to sell your house. Leases with short terms, usually below 80 or so years, will be much harder to sell. This is because many mortgage providers will not give potential buyers a mortgage on the property. Plus, those that do will offer more limited mortgages. As a result, you’ll have fewer people interested in buying your property.
Increasing your lease term means people can easily get a mortgage for it, making it much easier to sell.
If you are going to extend your lease, don’t leave it to the last minute. This is because the less time on a lease, the more you have to pay, and you may also have to contribute 50% of your marriage value if the term drops below 80 years.
Marriage value is the amount your property value increased due to a lease extension. So if it goes up to £275,000 from £250,000, your marriage value is £25,000. As you can imagine, paying half of that amount when getting a lease extension in Sevenoaks can drastically increase how much you pay. Get your extension done early to avoid this extra fee.
The longer you leave it, the more a lease extension will cost. You should contact a lease extension surveyor in Sevenoaks today to start the process.
What does a lease extension surveyor in Sevenoaks do?
A lease extension surveyor isn’t an optional extra you can get during the process. Instead, they’re essential for completing various tasks during the process. Our lease extension surveyors can offer their services at different stages of the process, working hard to get the best outcome for you.
The primary task of a lease extension surveyor is to value your property and then issue a fair price for how much your lease extension will be. A surveyor will visit your home and complete a robust evaluation to determine how much your property will be valued if listed on the property market.
This value is then used to influence the price of your lease extension, in addition to other details of your lease and the location of your property. When giving you a price, our lease extension surveyors in Sevenoaks will give you a range of what to expect, giving you some freedom to negotiate on price.
Once you’ve received a price, a surveyor must help you send a Section 42 Notice by contacting a solicitor. This document is used to notify your freeholder of your intentions to extend a lease and includes an offer of how much to pay. A lease extension surveyor in Sevenoaks can help a solicitor create the perfect notice, ensuring all required information is included and correct.
Surveyors are also available to aid with legal issues and can liaise with the court and property chamber if your case goes to a First Tier Tribunal, where your price will be finalised.
Our lease extension surveyors in Sevenoaks do everything per The Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, meaning you’ll get a quality experience when using our team.
The Sevenoaks Lease Extension Process
Before getting a lease extension surveyor in Sevenoaks, it’s essential that you fully understand the process and what is expected of you so that you’re prepared. On average, this process can take around a year from start to finish, so make sure you begin this process early to help you save money.
You shouldn’t deviate from this process when using the statutory route, as it’s been developed to ensure all guidance and legislation from the 1993 act is met.
Here’s a quick overview of what the process will typically look like when you extend your lease in Sevenoaks:
Step 1. Hire a Sevenoaks surveyor
You’ll first instruct a surveyor to complete a property inspection of your leasehold. This inspection will allow them to determine how much the property will be worth. This valuation heavily influences the final price for your lease extension, so you want an accurate and reliable surveyor like us.
Step 2. Section 42 Notice
Once you have your valuation and range of lease extension cost, you must serve a Section 42 Notice to your freeholder. This informs your freeholder that you want to extend your lease and includes your first offer of how much you want to pay. This price needs to be realistic and based on your surveyor’s valuation.
Step 3. Freeholder Response
The freeholder has two months since it was sent to respond to the Section 42 Notice. They’ll reply through a Section 45 Notice, where they can either accept your price or suggest a different one.
Step 4. Pay deposit
If you’ve agreed on a price, you’ll confirm the lease extension by paying a deposit. This needs to be paid within 14 days. The price will either be 10% of the total lease extension cost or £250, depending on what’s larger of the two.
Step 5. First Tier Tribunal
If the freeholder rejects your offer, both parties have up to six months to negotiate the price you want to pay. If negotiations are stalling, you must take the case to the Top Tier Tribunal within these six months. Here, you’ll be issued a final price of your lease extension that both parties need to agree on.
There’s no point in the process that you’re at risk of getting your lease extension refused. It’s your right under the 1993 act. All that’s under threat is the final price you pay. A top-quality lease extension surveyor like Copeland Yussuf can help you get the lowest price possible and help you through the process quickly.
Why Choose Copeland Yussuf in Sevenoaks?
The Chartered Surveyors at Copeland Yussuf are the best in Sevenoaks and Kent; we have the feedback and reviews to prove that. Over the past few years operating in the area, we’ve assisted multiple leaseholders to get the lease extension they want for a fair price.
We’re the preferred surveyors of many councils and housing groups in Sevenoaks and beyond, demonstrating our trustworthiness and quality.
We’re also regulated by RICS, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. This means we’re committed to providing the best service possible and always operating to a high standard. Everything we do is heavily influenced by the guidance in The Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, making all our work legal, accurate, and reliable.
We offer various Lease Enfranchisement services, and for lease extensions, we can:
- Double-check that you’re eligible for a lease extension
- Inspect your property and create an accurate valuation
- Negotiate on your behalf to help you get a good price
- Provide legal help for any court cases and tribunals
We’re quality practitioners in lease extensions. Contact us today to see how we can help you and your property.
Lease Extension Croydon FAQs
Do you need a Sevenoaks lease extension surveyor?
You need a lease extension surveyor at multiple points of the lease extension process. To start the process, you need to instruct a lease extension surveyor to value your property so that you can get an accurate price for your lease extension.
In addition, a lease extension surveyor is also needed to instruct a solicitor to send your Section 42 Notice to your freeholder, as you're not allowed to do this yourself.
In addition to these required services, you can get a lease extension surveyor to help you draft your notice so that it's professional and includes all the details needed. They can also help you during any legal proceeding and contact a solicitor if required.
What's the difference between a statutory and informal lease extension?
When you get a lease extension through the 1993 Act, that's considered a statutory lease extension. Your lease extension request cannot be rejected through this method as long as you're eligible. Under the act, you can extend your lease by 90 years using the statutory method. When going this route, your valuation will also be heavily influenced by your property's value and guidelines from the act.
An informal lease extension differs because it doesn't have to adhere to the 1993 act. As a result, the freeholder can refuse your request. They can also demand an inflated value for the extension and offer an extension smaller than 90 years.
If you're not eligible for a lease extension, you'll have to go through this risky informal route to get one.
Am I eligible for a lease extension in Sevenoaks?
Most people who own a leasehold in Sevenoaks will be eligible for an extension, as you need to pass only two main criteria.
First, you need to have owned the leasehold for over two years. This prevents you from extending a lease on a property you just bought. Plus, the original lease term had to be over 21 years when you first bought it.
Additionally, you can't extend a lease if the freeholder is a charity or if you have a commercial lease instead of a residential one.
How much does getting a lease extension cost?
The price for a lease extension will differ drastically based on various factors. For some people, an extension can cost less than £1,000, whereas, for others, it can cost £20,000 or even more. Without the needed information, it's tough to get an accurate valuation, which is why getting a good lease extension surveyor in Sevenoaks is so important to work out the price.
The following criteria will be used to help figure out how much you owe:
- The amount of the freeholder's interest decreases because of the additional years added
- The amount the property's value increases by
- How much your ground rent cost
- The properties location, as that influences its value
- The number of years you have remaining on your lease
As well as the cost of a lease extension, you'll also have to pay survey fees and any costs the freeholder had to pay due to you extending your lease. Also, if you extend your lease after it's dropped below 80 years, you'll have to contribute 50% of the marriage value.
Can you get multiple lease extensions in succession?
A leasehold can have its lease extended multiple times, but you can only extend it by 90 years each time.
Although you can extend the lease as many times as you like as long as you can afford it, it's unlikely that doing so will be sensible. At a certain point, adding more years to a lease won't significantly increase its value, meaning paying to extend it could become a waste of money. For example, a lease with a 210-year term won't be worth more than a 300-year term.
In most cases, you'll only extend the lease on a property once, as by the time the lease falls to a low enough term, you would have likely moved on.
What's the difference between a freehold and a leasehold property?
A freehold property is where the owner owns both the land and the property. They own this indefinitely until they sell it.
A leasehold property is where the owner only owns the property, not the land, as that still belongs to the freeholder. A lease will expire after a set period of time unless it's extended.
Many leaseholders have to pay ground rent each annum during their ownership period and may have restrictions on what they can do to the property.
Can a freeholder refuse a leasehold extension in Sevenoaks?
If you're getting a lease extension through the statutory route, you can't have your request rejected by your freeholder. The 1993 act gives you this right, and the freeholder can only argue against the price you offer.
Eventually, they must agree once a First Tier Tribunal has decided the price.
Your attempt to extend your lease can only be refused if you're getting an informal lease extension due to not meeting the eligibility criteria. In this situation, they can refuse.
What if I can't get hold of the freeholder?
If your freeholder is impossible to reach, this can cause problems when extending your lease. You need to serve them a Section 42 Notice to start the process, so if you don't know how to contact them, this can slow down the process.
Thankfully, you can obtain a Vesting Order, meaning that the lease can be extended through a tribunal without contacting the freeholder, but you'll first need to prove that you've done all you can to reach them.
You'll need to prove that you've placed adverts in your local newspaper, hired a search agent, visited their last known address, and checked the probate records before your Vesting Order request can be accepted.
How common are leasehold properties in Sevenoaks?
In 2021, 8% of houses were leaseholds across the UK, per official government data. This means that leaseholds make up a small percentage of the housing market. However, over half of the flats and apartments across the country were leaseholds.
Flats are the most common building for leaseholds because the entire structure each unit is in will usually be freehold, and each unit will be sold under a lease.
Sevenoaks has its fair share of lease properties, making it a location where you'll find more leaseholds than the national average. Our surveyors at Copeland Yussuf know this location well and the areas of Sevenoaks most prevalent with leasehold properties.
Is there a minimum requirement on how long a lease extension has to be?
If extended through the statutory route, your lease extension will be either 90 or 50 years, depending on your property type. As default, these terms are the maximum and minimum you can extend your lease.
However, if you can't get a statutory lease and are choosing the informal route, then there's no limit to how long you can extend your lease. Your freeholder will likely prefer that you extend your lease by a small number of years, if at all, meaning that lower terms are more common when using the informal route. That said, getting as long of an extension as possible is always in your best interest.
Our Sevenoaks Lease Extension Experts are ready to help
Many of our past clients and customers in Sevenoaks have a lot of great things to say about our services. Over the years, we’ve obtained a lot of positive feedback, which speaks volumes of our quality.
This reputation in Sevenoaks has been achieved through merit and hard work, and we’re very proud of the lasting impression we’ve left on our clients.
Here are some examples of how we’ve supported people through the lease extension process. Reviews have been sourced from Google Reviews, Yell.com, and private feedback.
