If you own a flat in the London Borough of Merton, you almost certainly have a right to extend the lease the lease by 90 years (and remove the ground rent!). You are given this right to a “Statutory Lease Extension” by the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993.
Homehold will look after the statutory lease extension process from start to finish, including all of the valuation, negotiation and legal work required – so you don’t end up having to be the project manager during a long and windy process. The legal element of the lease extension will be completed by our subsidiary law firm, Leasehold Legal Services Limited.
We have extensive experience working in the London Borough of Merton – we’ve done Merton Council lease extensions. We have done pretty much everything from purpose built flats in the large Sheldrick Close Clarion Housing development, to conversions of Victorian property near Mitcham Eastfield Station in Mitcham.
Considering using Homehold for your lease extension in Merton?
Who can extend their lease in Merton?
If you are the leaseholder of a flat or maisonette in Merton, you almost certainly have this legal right to extend your lease. If the London Borough of Merton is your freeholder, then this is almost guaranteed.
There is one exception that is worthy of note and would prevent you from extending your lease.
If you own your flat under a shared ownership scheme where you own a proportion of your flat, but pay rent on the share that you don’t own, then you are not eligible to do a statutory lease extension.
The requirement for ownership of your flat for two years was removed on 31 January 2025.
How much will a lease extension for my flat in Merton cost?
Generally when you do a lease extension you need to pay three things.
The first part is the ‘Premium’, which is the price to buy the extra years and remove the ground rent. In turn this has three elements:
- How much your flat would be worth if it was sold in a maintained condition and with a long lease.
- The number of years unexpired on your existing lease.
- Your annual ground rent payment, and how this increases over time.
Generally if you want to do a Merton Council Lease Extension, then the cost will be lower than if you have a private freeholder. This is because most of the London Borough of Merton’s housing stock is let on 125-year leases from the mid-1980s, all with a £10 a year ground rent.
If you have a private landlord, then it is more likely that you have a shorter lease, below the 80 year mark, or that you will have a higher and rising ground rent. If either of these things are true then your lease extension will be more expensive.
In addition to the premium, you also need to pay our fees - which are detailed below.
Finally, you also need to pay your freeholder's fees which are likely to be similar to ours - but can be a little more.
What is the process for extending my lease?
There are several steps in the Lease Extension process and these including reviewing the legal documents associated with your existing lease, ascertaining how much we think your lease extension should cost, claiming your legal right to a lease extension with your freeholder and doing the legal work to complete your lease extension and get it registered at the Land Registry.
At Homehold, we’ll look after the process from start to finish. The valuation work will be done by our team at Homehold and the legal work will be done by Leasehold Legal Services, which is a firm of solicitors that we own.
Stage 1: Valuation and Preparation
The legal team at Leasehold Legal Services will review the title documents related to your flat and the block or development that it sits within. This groundwork is important, as it identifies issues or pitfalls which could come up later on in the process and need to be navigated.
The valuation team at Homehold will conduct a specialist lease extension valuation and use several data points to establish the value of your property and the resulting lease extension premium.
Clearly if your flat is a period conversion in Mitcham, it will have a very different set of comparable properties and valuation than a flat in a purpose built Merton Council block in Merton Abbey or a property in an Art Deco block of flats in Morden.
Stage 2: Notice Serving and Negotiation
Once we know how much to offer your freeholder, a notice (known as a “Section 42 Notice”) will be served on your freeholder to get the ball rolling.
They then have 75 days (you have to give them two months, but is customary to give some additional time for postage) to respond with their Counter Notice.
We then negotiate with the freeholder to make sure that the premium you pay for your lease extension is fair. This negotiation will be based heavily on the valuation work that we’ve done as part of Stage 1 of the process.
Stage 3: Conveyancing and Completion.
Once the price for your lease extension is agreed the final stage is to get the paperwork sorted.
Your freeholder’s solicitor will produce a document that refers to the terms of your existing lease, but adds the additional 90 years and removes the ground rent.
This lease will be reviewed, the deal completed and registered at the Land Registry – so you know that you will have a nice long lease.
How much do Homehold charge for a lease extension?
We work on a fixed fee and it is the same for everyone – whether your flat is in Wimbledon, Eastfield or Raynes Park it is the same for everyone!
The fee is £2,580+VAT which is split into three equal instalments of £860+VAT.
This includes all of the legal, valuation and negotiation work. It also includes costs that many firms add on top such as postage and Land Registry fees.
Why use Homehold?
Homehold are unusual in the fact that we only work for leaseholders. This means we can always make arguments and take positions without worrying that they’ll upset our freeholder clients – because we don’t have any!
Equally, the fact that we look after the entire lease extension process from start to finish means that you can relax about the process, and know that you are not going to have to end up as the project manager.
Hear it from another flat owner in Merton
A number of leaseholders in my cul-de-sac (around a dozen of us) extended our leases and we collectively chose Leasehold Legal Services. I can confirm that the email communication was superb and I was kept up to date on every single aspect throughout my lease extension. They were quick to respond to phone calls and explained matters succinctly. I would highly, highly recommend this company.
Deane Kathryn Keeling
