Lease Extensions within Council owned Freeholds
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Lease Extensions within Council owned Freeholds
For Brighton and Hove properties only, where the Freehold is owned by Brighton & Hove City Council.
(The form below is also suitable for properties within Adur District Councils Freeholds)
The Leaseholders Action Group have negotiated with two local specialists in Lease Extensions to offer Leaseholders a simple, cost-effective route to extend their flat leases with reduced professional fees.
Valuers
Austin Gray are Chartered Surveyors and Valuers who specialise in Lease Extensions. They are RICS Registered Valuers. They will undertake the Valuation for the cost of extending your lease and advise on valuation issues for the Lease Extension.
Solicitors
Burt Brill & Cardens Solicitors are a long established and experienced firm who specialise in the legal aspect of Lease Extensions. This will include serving a Notice on the Council (Section 42) and taking the matter through to legal completion and registering your new lease.
Please contact Maureen Edwards (medwards@bbc-law.co.uk) or Elizabeth Howlett (EHowlett@bbc-law.co.uk) or call 01273 604123 for a quote.
Background
Given that the majority of Flat leases originally issued by Brighton & Hove City Council (BHCC) are very similar, the firm above are able to offer a discounted fee rate for their advice. This is only relevant to flats where the freehold is owned by Brighton & Hove City Council with an excess of 80 years remaining on the lease. In the rare case that your lease has less than 80 years remaining, you will need to speak to one of our Team for additional advice and the fee will be higher than the discounted level quoted here. If this is the case, please call Stewart Gray on 01273 201988 or email stewartgray@austingray.co.uk
After you have extended your lease;
a) You pay zero ground rent
b) Your lease gets extended for a further term of 90 years (so, if your lease is currently 87 years long, it will have a term of 177 years after your extension).
enquire about a lease extension
Complete the form below and our lease extension team will be in touch.
Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024
Following the announcement of the snap General Election on 22 May, the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill was selected as part of the “wash up” process and received Royal Assent on 24 May, before Parliament was dissolved. It is now law, but it is not yet in force. The overall aim of this law is to make it cheaper and easier for people to extend their lease or buy their freehold.
Key Points for Leaseholders
- Increase in the standard lease extension from 90 to 990 years for houses and flats
- Leaseholders will not have to pay their freeholder’s costs when making a claim (except in limited cases)
- Removing the requirement for a leaseholder to have owned their house or flat for two years before they can make a claim
- Banning the sale of new leasehold houses
- The Government wanted all ground rents to go to a peppercorn, it was later softly suggested that there could be a ground rent cap, but this did not become part of the new Act.
Although this Act tells us what will happen, we do not know when and we do not know if all leaseholders will be better off. This is because we are waiting for sight of secondary legislation that will affect the valuation – the deferment and capitalisation rates, for example (see more below under faqs). Depending on what these rates are set at, could affect the price of a Council lease extension.
There is speculation that in fact leases over 80 years will become more expensive after the new laws come in. We will have to see as it is impossible to speculate at this stage.
Given that to extend a lease in a freehold block owned by the Council on an 80 year plus remaining should only cost, today, somewhere between £3,000-£5,000, it may be better to bite the bullet and extend now and not take the risk.
When will this happen?
Paragraph 82 of the Government’s Impact Assessment indicates that some changes could be by 2025/2026 but others not until at least 2028. This could also depend on which party wins the General Election.
Despite the Freehold and Leasehold Act 2024, until it is implemented, we still value within the 1993 Act.
The first step is the valuation.
Once you have completed the form below, Austin Gray will email you a Terms of Engagement letter for their services which you will need to please sign and return to us by email or post.
This Terms of Engagement letter includes a reference number to use with the payment. You will need to pay the Valuation fee before we commence the report.
The fee is £480 (£400 + VAT).
BACS details
- Sort Code: 20-12-75
- Account No: 43438805
- Account Name: Austin Gray
- Bank: Barclays
You must use the four-digit number provided in the Terms of Engagement as the reference on your bank transfer, so we are able to identify your payment.
Within approximately 7 days of receipt of payment, Austin Gray will email you with your valuation report. If you would like an additional paper copy sent in the post, please let us know in the form below under “Additional Comments”.
We will also send a copy of the report to your solicitor. You are not committed to using Burt Brill & Cardens Solicitors – you may use your own solicitor if you wish, but please provide us with their details.
The Valuation will be on a desktop basis, i.e. there will be no physical inspection of the flat by Austin Gray. This is because, for this valuation, the condition of the flat is irrelevant. We will base our valuation on comparable evidence in your block.
That means recent sales of similar flats in your block or in similar adjoining blocks.
With a long lease such as yours and a fixed ground rent (of only £10 pa in most cases), we can give you a realistic range for the price you would expect to pay to the Council.
For example-purposes only, we may say your lease extension will cost you between £3,000-£5,000. In some cases, the spread may be a little wider.
As we have explained, the costs of lease extensions will be changing, but we do not yet know what the costs will be or when they will take effect.
Once you receive the valuation report, your solicitors will email you for your instructions to proceed and then they will serve a Notice on the Council (Section 42). Once the Notice is served, this starts the legal timetable and procedure.
At that stage the Council will either:
- Accept your offer price in the notice
- OR as a result of their own valuation, negotiate a slightly higher figure – which SHOULD be within our band we have provided you within our report.
In our experience, the matter is unlikely to be difficult due to the long length of the lease and the fixed ground rent, unless there are special circumstances, and we would have pointed out any unusual issues in respect of the valuation to you in our report. If negotiations are required, our fee would be 20% of what we can save you off the Counter Notice to a cap of £250 + VAT.
Under the 1993 Act, the law states that the flat owner is not only responsible for their own professional fees, but also the Solicitors fees and the Valuers fees for the Freeholder and these must be reasonable.
Your solicitor will issue you with their terms of engagement on receipt of our Valuation report.
Burt Brill & Cardens Solicitors fees are estimated at £1,250 + VAT for Council Lease Extensions. Please contact Maureen Edwards (medwards@bbc-law.co.uk) or Elizabeth Howlett (EHowlett@bbc-law.co.uk) or call 01273 604123 for a quote.
You are not committed to using Burt Brill & Cardens Solicitors – you may use your own solicitor if you wish, but please advise us in the form below under “Additional Comments” so we can send them a copy of the repot.
