Extend your lease

Valuation and completion of sale

If we agree to your lease extension, we'll instruct our valuers to contact you or your advisers to negotiate the price. If we can't agree on a price, we may refer to the First Tier Tribunal.

Once a price has been agreed solicitors must complete the legal documentation and register the new lease at the Land Registry.

You must pay all outstanding service charges and costs relating to the property before the sale is completed.

On completion, 90 years will be added to the current unexpired term of the lease and your new lease will include:

• a peppercorn ground rent (eg no ground rent) for the whole of the term (the 90 years plus your unexpired term); and
• be on the same terms as the existing lease, subject to minor modifications and certain statutory exclusions and additions:

1. Modifications - this will allow us to take account of any existing alterations to the flat, since the grant of the existing lease, or to remedy a defect in the lease. If there have been alterations to the property, a new lease plan may be required along with a retrospective application of consent (at an additional cost to you). Please note this would require a new permission application from you and we'd only be able to proceed with the lease extension after the alterations application is completed. If you wish to inform us or make alterations, email hsg.conveyancing@southwark.gov.uk for further advice.
2. Exclusions - since the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (‘Act’) provides a right to perpetual renewal of the lease; any existing clauses relating to renewal, pre-emptions or early termination are to be excluded.
3. Additions - a requirement not to grant a sub-lease of sufficient length so as to confer on the sub-lessee a right to a new lease under the Act.
4. The Landlord's redevelopment right - the new lease must also contain a clause giving the landlord the right to repossession of the flat for the purposes of redevelopment. This right does not arise until the end of the term of the existing lease (for example the initial 125 year lease) and is subject to a court application. Should a court order be awarded in favour of the landlord, compensation is payable to the leaseholder for the full value of the remaining 90 years.

Page last updated: 29 May 2024