When you can extend your council leasehold
The law allows leaseholders of flats to extend the length of their lease by 90 years provided certain criteria are met. Therefore, if a leaseholder with 100 years remaining on his lease completes a lease extension, the additional 90 years will be added to the 100 years remaining meaning the leaseholder will then own a lease of 190 years.
In order to be able to extend your lease you must own a long lease of a flat which is a lease for a term of more than 21 years or a lease granted under "right to buy" In addition, the following conditions must be satisfied:
- you must have owned the lease of your flat for more than two years
- you're not a commercial or business tenant
To establish whether you are able to extend your lease we recommend you seek professional advice at an early stage.
Serving notice
You must serve a notice on the council. The notice must be in the form stipulated by section 42 of the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993.
After you have served notice, we have two months to respond.
We recommend you seek professional advice when drafting the notice as any inaccuracies may result in the notice being deemed invalid.
Valuation
If we agree to your lease extension we will instruct our valuers to contact you or your advisers to negotiate the price.
Where the price cannot be agreed the matter may be referred to the first tier tribunal for determination.
Completing the sale
Once the price is agreed solicitors must be instructed to complete the legal documentation and register the new lease at the land registry. Before completion you must have paid us all outstanding service charges and costs relating to the flat.
Fees
In extending your lease you will be responsible for our reasonable costs in respect of:
- undertaking an investigation of your right to a new lease
- obtaining a valuation and granting a new lease
If you need further information
You can go to the Leasehold Advisory Service website, which contains a lease extension calculator which will provide a rough estimate of the cost of extending a lease.
You can also read our guidance for leaseholders on lease extensions.