Stop! Your Lease Extension in Waddon Could Be FREE

Many leaseholders in Waddon are unaware that their original lawyer had a duty to warn them about future mortgageability and saleability issues. Before you pay thousands to your freeholder, let us audit your purchase history. You might have a claim that pays for your lease extension in full

If you are facing a significant premium because your lease in Waddon has dropped toward the 80-year mark, your previous lawyer may be at fault. Our panel of experts specialise in recovering lease extension costs from negligent firms who failed to protect your investment.

Top reasons for Waddon lease extension


Top reasons for lease extension now:

Increase your lease and increase your Waddon property value

The market value of a leasehold property in Waddon is impacted by how long the lease has remaining. If it is near to or fewer than eighty years you should envisage difficulties on re-sale, so it is advisable to arrange for the lease to be extended before buying. Ideally one should start the lease extension process when the lease still has 82 years to run so that formalities can be addressed well before the 80 year threshold. Statute enables Waddon qualifying lessees to a 90 year extension added to their unexpired lease term (ie if your lease has fifty years remaining the statutory lease extension will provide a new term of 140 years). The reason of the valuation is to arrive at an opinion of the premium payable by the lessee to the freeholder for the acquisition of the lease extension.

An extended lease has roughly the same value as a freehold

It is conventional wisdom that a property with over 100 years unexpired lease term is worth roughly the same as a freehold. Where an further ninety years added to any lease with more than 30 years left, the residence will be equivalent in value to a freehold for many years in the future.

Lending institutions will not grant a mortgage on a short lease

Whether or not the lease is be regarded as a short lease varies by mortgage company, yet lending institutions start to get jittery at around 75 years. This will cause difficulties once you need to sell or remortgage your property as it will be effectively unmortgageable. Even though you may not have an imminent desire to sell but when you do your buyer will need to wait 2 years before being able to exercise the right to a an extension to the lease.

Lender Requirement
Coventry Building Society 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.
Nationwide Building Society - Our minimum unexpired lease term is 55 years, except where lending is over 85% of the purchase price/valuation on a second hand flat, in which case our minimum unexpired term is 90 years.
- There must be at least 30 years remaining at the end of the mortgage term (regardless of the length of lease at the start).

Where the unexpired lease term is different to that recorded on the mortgage offer, the following clarifies if we need to be informed:

Second hand property:
- If the unexpired lease term on the offer is 85 years or more - only advise us if the actual lease term is less than 85 years
- if the unexpired lease term on the offer is less than 85 years – advise us if the actual lease term is different than reported
- For equity share applications - advise us if the actual lease term is different than reported on the offer
- Where lending is over 85% of the purchase price/valuation on a second hand flat and the unexpired lease term on the offer is 90 years or more - only advise us if the actual lease term is less than 90 years.

New build property:
- If the unexpired lease term stated on the offer is 125 years (flat) / 250 years (house) or more - only advise us if the actual lease term is less than 125 years (flat) / 250 years (house)
- For equity share applications - always advise us if the actual lease term is different than reported on the offer

Lease terms such as ground rent and event fees must be reasonable at all times during the term of the lease and adhere to our requirements below. If you’re unsure as to whether the terms of a lease are unreasonable or onerous, please refer the details to us in plain English for Valuer consideration. If the potentially onerous terms are in relation to the ground rent please include the current ground rent figure per annum, how often it will be reviewed and the price structure it will be reviewed against. See the guidance below.

SECOND HAND PROPERTIES

Unacceptable - advise Issuing Office (Will be declined):
- Unexpired lease term less than 55 years
- Unexpired lease term less than 90 years where we are lending more than 85% of the purchase price/valuation on a second hand flat
- Less than 30 years remaining at the end of the mortgage term
- Ground Rent greater than 0.5% of the property value
- Ground Rent doubles less than every 20 years (e.g. doubles every 5, 10 or 15 years) - acceptable if doubles every 20 years or more
- Ground Rent is compounded RPI
- Ground Rent review period is less than or equal to 5 years

Refer to Issuing Office (Valuer will consider any impact on valuation figure and marketability):
- Unexpired lease term is 55 to 85 years
- Ground Rent greater than 0.1% and less than or equal to 0.5% of the property value
- Ground Rent escalation is linked to any indices greater than RPI
- Ground Rent escalation is linked to the value of the building*
- Ground Rent review period is greater than 5 and less than 10 years
- Event clauses exist for normal use e.g. changing the carpet, installing a TV aerial, etc
- Estate Rent Charges greater than £500 p/a (please provide details of what the charges cover)
- Service Charges greater than 1% of property value p/a (please provide details of what the charges cover)
- Anything that appears onerous, unusual or out of the ordinary

Acceptable (no requirement to advise Issuing Office):
- Unexpired lease term greater than 85 years (Minimum 90 years where we are lending more than 85% of the purchase price/valuation on a second hand flat)
- Ground Rent less than or equal to 0.1% of the property value
- Ground Rent review period greater than or equal to 10 years
- Ground Rent escalation less than or equal to RPI

NEW BUILD PROPERTIES (includes office conversions)

Unacceptable - advise Issuing Office (Will be declined)
- Unexpired lease term less than 125 years on a new build flat or less than 250 years on a new build house (does not apply to Shared Ownership)
- Any lease which is subject to a Ground Rent (or Annual Rent) being charged which is more than on a peppercorn basis
- Any lease which is subject to a Ground Rent (or Annual Rent) being charged which is more than on a peppercorn basis

Refer to Issuing Office (Valuer will consider any impact on valuation figure and marketability):
- Event clauses exist for normal use e.g. changing the carpet, installing a TV aerial etc
- Estate Rent Charges greater than £500 p/a (please provide details of what the charges cover)
- Service Charges greater than 1% of property value p/a (please provide details of what the charges cover)
- Anything else appears onerous, unusual or out of the ordinary

Acceptable (no requirement to advise Issuing Office):
- Unexpired lease term greater than or equal to 125 years on a new build flat or greater than or equal to 250 years on a new build house
- A lease subject to a peppercorn Ground Rent (Annual Rent) charges

For the avoidance of doubt, any New Build properties completed but not sold pre-30 June 2022 will only be acceptable if the Lease conforms to the above guidance.

* Where the Ground Rent escalation is linked to the value of the building, please provide the following:
- How is the value of the block/unit currently calculated and if the assessment relates to the block(s), how is the Ground Rent calculated/apportioned per property?
- The current valuation and Ground Rent for each unit
- What is the mechanism for future valuations of the block and how is the Ground Rent calculated/apportioned?
- What is the right of appeal? And is this a documented process within the lease?
- Who bears the cost of the valuation (and appeal) process?
- Confirmation the review period is not less than twenty years.

Lease Extensions

We require all Lease Extensions to be completed under the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 and to meet the above criteria as a minimum. Where you become aware that it does not meet these requirements, please refer to Issuing Office.

Please ensure that all lender enquiries are submitted (with full documentation/requirements) at least 2 weeks prior to exchange to allow sufficient time for review and decisioning.
Santander

If the property is leasehold, the remaining unexpired lease term at the end of the new mortgage term must be at least 50 years where any part of the mortgage is on Interest Only and 30 years if all loan parts are on Capital Repayment and Interest.

You must report the unexpired lease term to us and await our instructions if: 
1. the unexpired term assumed by our valuer is between 55 and 82 years, but the actual unexpired term differs by more than one year (whether longer or shorter); or
2. the unexpired term assumed by our valuer is more than 82 years but the actual unexpired term is less than 82 years; or
3. no valuation report is provided.
 


We will accept a lease that has been extended under the provisions of the Leasehold Reform Act 1993 provided statutory compensation would be available to the leaseholder.

Get in touch with one of our Waddon lease extension solicitors or enfranchisement solicitors

Regardless of whether you are a tenant or a landlord in Waddon,the lease extension experts that we work with will always be happy to discuss any residential leasehold matters and offer you the benefit of their in-depth market knowledge and the close ties they enjoy with Waddon valuers.

Waddon Lease Extension Example Cases:

Samuel, Waddon, South London

Half a year ago Samuel, started to get near to the eighty-year mark with the lease on his basement apartment in Waddon. In buying his property 19 years ago, the lease term was of little significance. Fortunately, he recognised he would soon be paying way over the odds for Extending the lease. Samuel arranged for a lease extension just ahead of time last July. Samuel and the freeholder via the management company subsequently agreed on the final figure of £5,000 . If the lease had dipped below eighty years, the premium would have become more exhorbitant by at least £1,025.

Waddon case:

Dr J Jackson bought a garden flat in Waddon in January 2005. We are asked if we could shed any light on how much (roughly) premium would likely be to prolong the lease by 90 years. Comparative flats in Waddon with 100 year plus lease were valued around £285,000. The mid-range ground rent payable was £45 invoiced per annum. The lease concluded in 2097. Given that there were 71 years unexpired we approximated the compensation to the freeholder for the lease extension to be between £12,400 and £14,200 not including costs.

Decision in Croydon

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement case for a Waddon property is 29 Woodstock Road in April 2014. the Tribunal determined that the premiums to be paid into court in respect of the purchase of the freehold registered at HMLR under Title N0.SY3997 should be £7,217. This case related to 4 flats. The unexpired residue of the current lease was 98 years.