Homehold offer a seamless, fixed-fee lease extension service from the beginning, right to the very end. We use the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, which allows you to extend your lease by 90 years and reduce your ground rent to a peppercorn (i.e. zero).
Considering using Homehold for your lease extension in Manchester?
Who can extend their lease in Manchester?
If you own a flat, whether it be in Salford, Trafford, Stockport, Tameside, Oldham, Bolton, Ashton-under-Lyne, Sale, Altrincham, Wythenshawe or beyond into Greater Manchester, you may well be entitled to extend your lease.
The one exception to this is if you own your flat through a shared ownership scheme. If you have a shared ownership flat, you will then have to ‘staircase’ your ownership to 100% before you can extend your lease.
Until recently, you also had to be the registered owner for a minimum of two years. However, this requirement was dropped on 31 January 2025 – so you can now extend your lease as soon as possible.
Manchester covers an extensive area, with an array of different types of flats – from Victorian conversions to modern purpose-built developments. Whether your freeholder is the Council, a Housing Association, private company or individual, our service can help you.
How much does a lease extension cost?
The amount you pay for you lease extension known as the ‘premium’ depends on the following factors:
- How much your flat is worth once the lease has been extended
- Your ground rent and how much it goes up over time
- The length of your lease
If your lease has under 80 years left, or you have a high ground rent, your premium will be higher. This is most common with private sector landlords. Ex-local authority flats are less likely to have high ground rents, as many council flats were let with £10 per year rents.
A good reason to extend your lease will be to not only increase the value of your flat but also remove the ground rent payable to a ‘peppercorn’ i.e. £0.
What’s the process?
Homehold will look after your complete lease extension from start to finish. This includes all our valuation work from Homehold and also the legal work, carried out by a firm of solicitors we own, Leasehold Legal Services (LLS) – which is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Stage 1: Preparation and Valuation
LLS will begin to review all of the relevant documents relating to your flat and development which are accessed via the Land Registry. This is done to ensure there are no surprises further down the line.
Once the legal team have completed their checks, the valuation team will be given the relevant information needed on your property to start the valuation report.
The valuation team will be looking for key evidence of similar style and age flats. For instance, if you own a Victorian conversion in Rochdale, we will consider sales of similar conversions in Rochdale. These comparables will be analysed and compared to your own to ensure an accurate valuation range is given.
Stage 2: Notice Serving and Negotiation
LLS, will serve an initial notice, which will make an offer to your freeholder based on a favourable valuation. The notice they serve is called a ‘section 42’.
The freeholder will have a couple of months to respond, which we expect them to use. They will then send a ‘counter-notice’ back with what they want you to pay for the lease extension known as the ‘premium’. Invariably, this will be much higher than our suggested premium – so do not worry if it comes back at a high level!
Our valuation team will then work on negotiating a fair premium with your freeholder’s valuer, using the evidence within our valuation report. We will cross-reference this with any fresh evidence we can use to argue for a lower figure. The team will use this evidence to support our calculations and work to get you the lowest premium. Our fixed fee includes our entire negotiation process, unlike others who can charge by the hour.
Stage 3: Conveyancing and Completion
Once we have agreed a premium with your freeholder, this is where we hand over to LLS, who start the legal part of the process for your lease extension.
The draft lease is prepared by your freeholder’s solicitor, and it is usually a short document that includes extending your lease by 90 year and sets the ground rent at a ‘peppercorn’ (i.e. zero). Sometimes they will insert other clauses, which LLS will discuss with you.
Conveyancing can take anywhere from six weeks up to four months. This is all dependent on how slow, (or quick!) the freeholder’s solicitors are.
The final part of the process is getting the lease registered with The Land Registry. This is also included in our fixed fee.
What do Homehold charge?
The fixed-fee for our entire service is £2,580+VAT including all valuation, negotiation and legal works carried out by LLS. Disbursements, which are usually additional costs are included.
This fee is also split into three equal instalments of £860+VAT. The three instalments correspond to each stage of our process.
Why use Homehold for your lease extension?
We are an all-inclusive service that have a large amount of experience in dealing with all different types of flats within Manchester and Greater Manchester.
For example, we’ve completed lease extensions for purpose-built flats in Denton, Tameside and Salford. We managed to secured low premiums for our clients.
“Carrying out valuations in Manchester is always exciting given it’s my closest City to home. It has a vast range of purpose-built flats to brand new luxury apartments in the City Centre – an understanding of the local area is key when valuing within an array of different areas within Manchester itself and Greater Manchester.
"Josh Adams, Valuer”
Hear it from another flat owner in Manchester
I have recently completed a lease extension on my first property which was quite a daunting experience, however, I couldn’t recommend a better company! Linz was great throughout the whole process, giving me updates regularly, he is very professional but also a very friendly person. I would 100% recommend this company! Keep up the great work.
Melisa Djuheric
