If you need a lease extension in Guildford, we can provide both a solicitor and a valuer to complete the process.
Under the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, if you own a flat, you have a legal right to extend your lease by an additional 90 year and remove the ground rent. The remaining terms of the lease will stay much as they currently are.
The team at Homehold – in collaboration with our own firm of solicitors, LLS – have extensive experience in completing lease extensions in Guildford and the surrounding areas.
Who can extend their lease in Guildford?
If you own a flat, you can almost certainly extend your lease. The main qualifying criteria is that you must have owned it for two years.
If you own your flat as part of a “shared ownership scheme” – where you continue to pay rent for a share of the property to your landlord – you won’t qualify. If you own it with other people or with a mortgage, that’s fine.
How much does a lease extension cost?
When you do a lease extension you have to pay a premium (which is just another word for price) to your freeholder to buy an extra 90 years and reduce the ground to £0.
The price you pay is predominately based on three things:
- The value of your flat with a long lease
- How much ground rent you currently pay, and how it goes up over time.
- The number of years currently remaining on the lease.
Guildford is a fantastic place to live, and house prices reflect this – being one of the most expensive places outside of the Capital. The average price of a flat in Guildford is currently approximately £273,000.
Our lease extension calculator will give you a rough indication of the cost of your lease extension, but particularly if your lease is low or you have a high or rising ground rent, this won’t be fully accurate.
What is the process?
There is a process set out in the legislation for completing a statutory lease extension, and Homehold are quite unusual that we will complete all the work required from start to finish.
We have an in-house valuation team and the legal work will be completed by Leasehold Legal Services Limited, which is our own firm of solicitors and is fully regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Stage 1: Preparation and Valuation
Our solicitors will start by reviewing the documents related to your flat which will be sourced from the Land Registry. This will include the lease, title register and title plan. They will do a similar review of the documents relating to your block too. This is to ensure we have everything we need for your lease extension, and there are no surprises later.
The solicitors will then provide a briefing to the valuation team, who will complete a detailed lease extension survey to estimate your lease extension premium.
This will be heavily based on “comparable evidence”, of similar properties which have sold locally to your own.
Stage 2: Notice Serving and Negotiation
Part of the duties of the valuation team is to provide an Opening Figure to offer your freeholder for the lease extension.
The solicitors will include this offer in an official notice, known as a Section 42 Notice, which will be served upon your freeholder.
The freeholder will then send a counternotice back, and you can expect them to ask for a higher price.
The valuation team will then negotiate with your freeholder’s valuer to achieve a fair premium.
Stage 3: Conveyancing and Completion.
We find that once a freeholder knows that the leaseholder is properly represented, they are willing to agree a fair price, and once that has been reached, the process to agree the paperwork to extend your lease will commence.
Your freeholder’s solicitor will extend the paperwork. Leases are usually extended by short document called a “Deed of Variation” or “Deed of Surrender and Regrant”. This will essentially add an additional 90 years to your lease and remove the ground rent, but otherwise keep it much the same.
How much do Homehold Charge?
We work on a fixed fee for our lease extensions, and this is the same irrespective of how much your flat is worth and where in Guildford it is located – it’s £2,325+VAT.
The fee is charged in three instalments of £775+VAT.
This includes all of the legal, valuation, negotiation and conveyancing work that you need – and all of the small charges that are sometimes added on top (e.g., Land Registry Fees).
The service is offered in collaboration with Leasehold Legal Services, which is a law firm that we own.
Why use Homehold?
Homehold have experience working in Guildford and the nearby towns, and are used to working with many of the major freeholders:
“I enjoy valuing property in Guildford, having worked in the South East for many years in a previous role. My team have recent experience valuing in the town and nearby villages – we recently completed valuations on a modern Housing Association block in Shalford and a 1980s Barratt Development on the outskirts of Cranleigh”
Rob Marchant MRICS, Chartered Surveyor and Head of Valuation at Homehold
Hear it from another flat owner in Guildford
“Homehold did an excellent job with our lease extension whilst a difficult freeholder was trying to derail things all through the process.”
Richard Bridgeman
