Any ideas on an easy lease extension?

[Giddysquid]

I wonder if anyone in Sydenham knows about or has been through the process of extending a lease on a flat. I've been told that you can either top up the lease amount to 99 years (the freeholder comes up with the figure initially) or can serve a 'Section 42' notice where you are granted 99 years on top of what you have left on the flat plus a vastly reduced ground rent. This sounds like much the preferred option but sounds too good to be true. Has anyone had any experience of this? It's all very confusing to me. Any help, greatly appreciated.

[Eagle]

I do not know the notice you refer to.
In my experience you can negotiate your lease up to 99 years , or indeed more , but will have to negotiate with the free holder a sum of compensation. There are guidelines set out and you pay pay more the nearer you are to about 60 years ( for some reason banks and building societies will not lend to leases below about 60 years , so you have a property you probably cannot sell. )

You probably need to consult a Solicitor in this matter.

[KM]

Try the lease advisory service; http://www.lease-advice.org/aboutus/

[JRobinson]

we found that we had difficulty selling our property because the lease was at 79 years - it's even worse than the above post would suggest, lots of mortgages wont lend on anything less than 80 years (no idea why, because the avareage length of mortgage is only 25 years anyway)
we were approached by Leasehold Solutions, as they were doing a lot of extensions in the same and neighbouring blocks. They extended the lease by 99 more years. They gave us an upfront quote, with no negotiation available (less than the free holder was going to suggest, but more than we could have bargained to ourselves), and then proceeded to take 18 months to finalise everything, even though they said it would be done in 6. lots of other parties involved, with seperate solicitors meant that eveything took longer, and when Land Registry lost the signed document from the management agent (which had taken the longest to get, as they'd already been paid right at the start), it took another two months to get that.

so all in all, a great idea, but I won't recomend Leasehold solutions.

[ALIB]

I may be talking out of my hat, but isn't there Government legislation in place to ensure all leaseholders can purchase their Freehold for a fair price ?
I'm not too sure of the details , but we did this recently. We ( me and the occupier of the other flat in our building) are now liable for all building repairs etc, but we mostly did that ourselves anyway.

It may even be worth gettting a loan or adding to your mortgage to obtain the Freehold as it will add value to the property

[Giddysquid]

Thanks for all your help everybody. The lease-advice website was very informative and had helpful people manning the phones.