Whether you are a leaseholder considering extending your lease or perhaps a freeholder that has received a statutory notice of claim, we are able to provide detailed guidance on the process and issues involved as well provide you with accurate and strategic valuation advice in order to secure the best possible terms by utilising the provisions within the Leasehold Reform Housing and Development Act 1993 (as Amended).
Call us today for a free consultation with one of our friendly advisors and to find out how we can assist you.
A lease is a right to use a property for a fixed period. As the term falls in, the value of the lease falls with it and the cost of extending rises. Extending protects and immediately enhances the value of your flat.
Buyers have become far better informed about the effect of lease length on value, and flats with shorter terms are increasingly difficult to sell because the cost of putting the lease right is high and uncertain. The same applies to borrowing: lenders have tightened criteria considerably, and raising finance or remortgaging against a short lease is harder than it was.
Thresholds vary between lenders, but in our experience caution begins where:
Below 75 years many lenders treat the flat as inadequate security altogether. If you are thinking of selling or remortgaging within the next few years, these thresholds usually matter more than the premium itself.
The premium rises steadily as the term shortens, but it rises sharply once the unexpired term falls below 80 years. At that point additional compensation becomes payable to the freeholder, known as marriage value — broadly, the increase in value created by granting the new lease, shared equally between leaseholder and landlord.
Crossing 80 years can add tens of thousands of pounds to the premium on an otherwise identical flat. If your lease is approaching that point, acting before it does is almost always the single biggest saving available to you.
If your lease was originally granted for a term exceeding 21 years, you qualify for a statutory lease extension. In return for a premium payable to the landlord, this entitles you to a further 90 years on top of the current unexpired term, and reduces the ground rent to a peppercorn — nil.
There is no longer any minimum ownership period. The former two-year requirement was abolished on 31 January 2025 under the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, so a recent purchaser can claim immediately.
The premium depends on the unexpired term, the value of the flat with a long lease, the amount and review pattern of the ground rent, and the location and type of building. Each of those involves valuation judgement, which is why the figure a landlord’s surveyor proposes and the figure we assess are rarely the same.
Our lease extension calculator gives you an indicative premium in under a minute. You will need the unexpired lease term, the current ground rent and an idea of what the flat is worth with a long lease. It is a guide rather than a formal valuation — but it tells you the order of magnitude before you commit to anything.
As well as your own valuation and legal costs, you will also be responsible for the landlord’s costs in connection with your claim for a new lease under Section 60 of the Act. The landlord’s costs must be reasonable and if they are deemed excessive an application to the Tribunal in respect of this can be made on your behalf.
Each party is responsible for their own negotiation fees and for any costs associated with the preparation or representation if the matter is referred to the Tribunal.
For further information and more detailed guidance on the statutory lease extension procedure, please click HERE for a complimentary guide prepared by the Leasehold Advisory Service.
The clearest way to show why lease length matters is to take the same flat twice, two years apart, either side of the 80-year threshold.
| 81 years unexpired | 79 years unexpired | |
|---|---|---|
| Loss of ground rent | around £2,100 | around £2,100 |
| Loss of the reversion | around £9,500 | around £10,500 |
| Marriage value | none — above 80 years | around £18,150 |
| Indicative premium | around £11,600 | around £30,700 |
Two years of waiting almost triples the premium. Nothing about the flat has changed. The ground rent is the same and the reversion has barely moved. The difference is almost entirely marriage value, which becomes payable the moment the unexpired term falls below 80 years and is shared equally between leaseholder and landlord.
On top of the premium you would also pay your own valuation and legal fees, the landlord’s reasonable statutory costs, Land Registry fees and, where the premium exceeds the threshold, Stamp Duty Land Tax.
Every line in that table rests on an assumption: the long lease value, the capitalisation yield applied to the ground rent, the deferment rate applied to the reversion, and the relativity between the short lease and the long lease. Move relativity by a couple of percentage points on a flat below 80 years and the premium can shift by five figures. That is what the two surveyors are actually negotiating over, and it is why a landlord’s opening figure is rarely the figure that settles.
These figures are illustrative only. They are not a valuation and must not be relied on when serving a notice or agreeing terms. Every claim turns on its own lease, building and evidence.
Try the lease extension calculator for an indicative figure on your own flat, or send us the details and we will give you an initial view.
Assumptions. Deferment rate 5%, capitalisation rate 7%, relativity taken from a curve based on the Savills 2015 and Gerald Eve 2016 unenfranchiseable graphs. Figures are rounded and illustrative only. Every case turns on its own evidence, and the rates applied are matters of professional judgement. These figures are not valuation advice.
We offer a ‘desktop’ valuation service at reduced rates when there is sufficient information provided to us on which to base the assessment (floor plan with measurements, estate agents particulars, photographs etc.) and the existing lease term is in excess of 80 years unexpired or you require an estimate in order to establish whether it is viable for you to proceed.
In all other cases, an inspection of the property is carried out in order to take detailed measurements, a floor plan and photographs. If you do not have access to your lease or other legal documents we can retrieve these on your behalf from Land Registry, the cost of which is nominal. We will then prepare a full valuation report with our professional assessment of the appropriate premium payable for the lease extension as well a sensitivity analysis in order to produce best and worst case outcomes in which to base the initial offer and subsequent negotiations.
We will liaise with your own or one of our highly experienced specialist solicitors throughout the process and if required negotiate the premium on your behalf with the leaseholder or freeholders surveyor in order to reach an amicable settlement, keeping you updated along the way. Our surveyors have an excellent track record in reaching successful settlements on behalf of clients but in the rare event that this is not possible, we will prepare an Expert Witness report and represent you before the First Tier Tribunal (formerly known as the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal).
We are able to offer significantly reduced rates for groups of leaseholders within the same building seeking to act together and in some instances, a collective enfranchisement (freehold purchase) may be worth considering. Please contact us for a free initial consultation and fee quotation.
At extension.lease we make the lease extension process simple, stress-free, and fully managed from start to finish.
If the terms of the Transfer deed and/or the premium remain in dispute two months after the Counter Notice has been served, either party may apply to the First Tier Tribunal to have these matters determined.
Any application must be made within six months of the date the Counter Notice was served and if no application is made within this time and terms of acquisition are not agreed, your notice will be deemed to be withdrawn. This means that you will void your current claim and will not be entitled to make a further claim for 12 months.
Once the terms of the acquisition are agreed, you will then have a period of 4 months in which to complete on the freehold purchase. This means that you must have funds in place and the Transfer must have been signed by both parties. If completion does not take place within this time, your claim will be deemed to be withdrawn unless a County Court application is made to protect your claim. Your solicitors will be able to advise you further in respect of this.
Once the notice has been served, the landlord may at any time request a deposit of 10% of the premium proposed in the initial notice. Have access to those funds from the outset so the request does not hold the claim up.
The landlord is entitled to inspect your flat to prepare their own valuation, and must give at least three days’ notice before doing so.
Once the counter-notice has been served, we begin negotiations with the landlord’s surveyor on the premium, while the solicitors agree the terms of the new lease in parallel. Most claims settle at this stage without an application to the Tribunal.
| Stage | Typical timing |
|---|---|
| Valuation and appraisal | 5–10 days from inspection |
| Section 42 notice served on the landlord | Once the premium is assessed |
| Landlord’s counter-notice | Within 2 months of the notice |
| Negotiation of the premium | Usually 1–4 months |
| Application to the First-tier Tribunal, if needed | Between 2 and 6 months after the counter-notice |
| Completion of the new lease | Typically 6–12 months overall |
Most claims settle by negotiation well before a tribunal hearing. The two-to-six month window after the counter-notice is a strict statutory deadline — miss it and the claim falls away, and you cannot serve a fresh notice for twelve months.
| Statutory | Voluntary | |
|---|---|---|
| Extra term | 90 years on top of the unexpired term | Whatever is agreed — often 90 or 999 years |
| Ground rent | Reduced to a peppercorn (nil) | Only if the landlord agrees |
| Lease terms | Broadly the same as the existing lease | Can be varied — watch for onerous changes |
| If you cannot agree | Either party can apply to the Tribunal | No mechanism — the deal simply stalls |
| Landlord’s costs | You pay reasonable statutory costs | By agreement, and often higher |
| Timescale | Governed by statutory deadlines | Entirely at the landlord’s pace |
A voluntary deal can be quicker and cheaper where the landlord is cooperative — particularly where the leaseholders already own the freehold. But without the statutory route there is no deadline the landlord must meet and no tribunal to refer to, so informal negotiations that drift often end up being started again as statutory claims. We advise on which route suits your circumstances before any notice is served.
Lease extension valuation is a specialism, not a sideline. The premium turns on assumptions that are genuinely arguable, and the difference between a well-argued case and a poorly argued one is measured in thousands of pounds.
We work alongside Arcadia Law, a firm of regulated solicitors, so the valuation and the legal work run in parallel rather than in sequence. Through extension.lease the whole process is available as a single packaged service with one fixed fee and one point of contact, which for a single flat is usually the simplest and most cost-effective route.
We act for freeholders as well as leaseholders, subject to conflict checks before accepting any instruction. If a section 42 notice has arrived, the statutory clock is already running.
The notice starts a claim and proposes a premium. You have a date stated in the notice, of at least two months, to serve a counter-notice admitting or disputing the claim and stating your own figure. That deadline is not negotiable: fail to serve in time and the claim can proceed on the leaseholder’s proposed terms.
Instruct a valuer promptly. The premium proposed by the leaseholder is an opening figure, and it is frequently well below what the evidence supports.
Not every notice is. The lease must qualify, the notice must contain the prescribed information and be properly served, and the proposed premium must be realistic rather than nominal. These points should be checked before the claim is conceded, not after.
You may request a deposit of 10% of the proposed premium at any time after the notice is served. You are also entitled to inspect the flat to prepare your own valuation, on at least three days’ notice.
Yes, in large part. On a statutory claim the leaseholder is responsible for your reasonable valuation and legal costs in addition to the premium. What counts as reasonable is itself capable of dispute and can be determined by the First-tier Tribunal, so costs should be properly evidenced.
Note the limits: each party bears its own costs of negotiation, and each side bears its own costs of any Tribunal proceedings. That is worth weighing before taking a claim to a hearing.
Development potential is the usual one — roof space, airspace or land that carries value only if it is identified and evidenced. Onerous or doubling ground rents are another, since their capitalised value is frequently understated in a leaseholder’s opening figure.
Send us the notice and the lease and we will tell you where the claim stands.
Leasehold reform has been under discussion for years, and it is the single question we are asked most often: should I wait?
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 reached the statute book, but much of it depends on secondary legislation and is not yet in force. Some provisions have commenced — the two-year ownership requirement was abolished on 31 January 2025, so a recent purchaser can claim immediately.
The changes most likely to affect what you pay, including the treatment of marriage value and the rates used to calculate the premium, are still awaited. Further legislation has also been proposed, and elements of the Act have been the subject of legal challenge by freeholder interests, which adds to the uncertainty over timing.
Waiting is not a neutral act. While you wait, your lease continues to shorten and the premium continues to rise. If your lease crosses the 80-year threshold in the meantime, marriage value becomes payable under the law as it stands — and as the worked example above shows, that can roughly double the premium on an otherwise unchanged flat.
Deferring also cuts across other plans. A short lease affects saleability and mortgageability long before it affects the premium, so if you may sell or remortgage in the next few years the lease length matters regardless of what Parliament does.
There is no single right answer. A lease at 95 years with a modest fixed ground rent can reasonably wait. A lease at 82 years, or one with a doubling rent, usually cannot. We will tell you where your lease sits relative to the thresholds that matter and whether waiting is a reasonable risk in your circumstances or a false economy — and we will say so plainly either way.
For most qualifying flats, the current statutory route generally gives the leaseholder a new lease adding 90 years to the existing term, with ground rent reduced to a peppercorn for the entire lease term. Informal lease extensions offered by landlords may deviate from the statutory basis and it is not uncommon for existing ground rents to be reserved or shorter lease extensions to be granted.
No. The former two-year ownership requirement has been removed for qualifying claims made from 31 January 2025 so you can commence the statutory lease extension process as soon as you take ownership of the flat and are the registered owner under Land Registry records.
The premium proposed in the notice sets the starting point for the claim. A specialist valuation helps you avoid an unrealistic opening figure and gives you a stronger basis for the notice and later negotiations.
The total cost usually includes the premium payable to the freeholder, valuation advice, negotiation costs if required, your solicitor's fees, the landlord's reasonable professional costs and Land Registry or other completion costs. The premium depends on the property value, lease length, ground rent and valuation assumptions. Through our extensive experience of completing a broad array of lease extensions, we can provide you with a good indication of the overall cost involved for your property so that you can confidently proceed knowing that you have the necessary funds to cover the likely cost of the process. Try our lease extension calculator for an instant estimate of the lease extension premium payable.
A longer lease will protect and enhance its value and make a flat easier to sell or remortgage. When a lease has 80 years or less remaining, the cost can exponentially increase significantly under the current rules because marriage value will become payable.
That depends on your lease length, ground rent, sale or remortgage plans, risk tolerance and the likely premium as well as your overall objectives. While leasehold reform is progressing, the majority of proposed changes are not yet fully implemented due to ongoing legal challenges, the need for industry consultation and due parliamentary process to be completed. Under the current legislative framework, delaying a lease extension simply means the lease becomes shorter and more expensive to extend. Taking professional advice early allows leaseholders to understand their current position and decide whether waiting is genuinely beneficial. Contact us for a no obligation consultation so that we can review your particular circumstances.
Blakes Chartered Surveyors provides specialist valuation and negotiation advice for lease extensions, while our associated solicitors, Arcadia Law, can handle the legal process.
We are able to issue quotations for the legal work required on Arcadia Law’s behalf and, where both firms are instructed, coordinate the process from start to finish. This provides leaseholders with a streamlined service through a single point of contact, helping to make the lease extension process as straightforward and stress-free as possible. Alternatively, visit our dedicated lease extension service website at https://extension.lease powered by Blakes Chartered Surveyors and Arcadia Law.
Statutory lease extensions can take from 4 to 12 months from starting the process through to completion with the timeframes permitted by law. Typically, however, with local authority freeholders; the lease extension is completed in 6 to 8 months. They can sometimes take longer if the premium or lease terms are disputed and the matter needs to be brought to Tribunal although this tends to occur only in a small minority of cases.
Yes. Where a landlord cannot be traced, an application can be made to the court for a vesting order, and the premium is determined by the First-tier Tribunal. It adds time and cost but it does not prevent the extension.
On a statutory claim you pay the landlord’s reasonable valuation and legal costs in addition to your own and the premium. Those costs must be reasonable, and they can be challenged at the Tribunal if they are not.
Yes. The benefit of a claim can be assigned to your buyer alongside the flat, so the sale and the claim proceed together. This needs to be handled carefully in the contract, and your solicitor should be told about the claim early.
