Extending your lease FAQs
What you need to consider if you're thinking of extending your lease.
When you purchased the lease to your home, your solicitor will have explained how many years were remaining on the lease. You can calculate the length of your lease by subtracting the amount of years that have passed since then.
Your solicitor should have given you a copy of your lease when you completed on your purchase. You can obtain a copy of your lease or transfer agreement direct from the Land Registry.
Shared owners can extend their lease through our informal route, but not under the statutory process.
You'll find further information on our home ownership page. An online form will be available there soon, together with guidance on extending your lease to help prepare your application.
For houses, we'll extend the lease for an additional 50 years. This will be added on to your existing term. We do not charge a premium for this, however you'll be expected to cover our costs.
As an outright leaseholder, you have two options to extend your lease:
- Option 1: Proceed ‘formally’ in accordance with the procedure laid down in the Leasehold Reform, Housing & Urban Development Act 1993.
- Option 2: Proceed ‘informally’ by legal agreement between you and us, but still broadly following the principles of the above Act.
We advise you to seek independent legal advice to confirm whether you have the right to formally proceed.
We're happy for you to follow whichever route you choose, but proceeding ‘informally’ has the following benefits:
- The process is simpler for both parties and may be cheaper as your legal fees are likely to be less (ensure you gain quotes)
- If you accept our valuation you'll only need to pay for the one valuation (under the ‘formal route’, you would need to pay for your own valuation as well as our valuation)
Shared owners
You can only apply for a lease extension ‘informally’ as a shared owner. You'll find further information on our home ownership page. An online form will be available there soon, together with guidance on extending your lease to help prepare your application.
The Lease Advisory Service provides a calculator from which you can obtain an estimate for the premium of the extension.
Note: the estimated figure provided by the calculator is based on the formal route. Under the informal route, the premium may be slightly less as the end-term applied for has less years.
The applicant will be expected to pay the percentage of the premium equal to the share owned. For example if you own 25% share of the property you'll pay 25% of the premium total. There's no estimate calculator available for informal lease extensions. All other costs are not apportioned and fully payable on completion.
To complete an informal lease extension the approximate timescale is four months from your initial request.
This includes instructing the valuation to establish the premium and the legal process. On average it takes three months for completion to take place from the date you advise you wish to proceed following your premium offer letter (which is valid for three months). This is subject to your solicitors acting promptly and there being no complex queries raised. If you don't proceed, or you don't respond, within three months of the offer the application will be closed.
To complete a formal lease extension we'll follow the timescales outlined in the legislation that governs the statutory process. Independent information is available from the Leasehold Advisory Service.
For a formal lease extension, it’s likely your lease will be extended for 90 years on top of your current term.
For lease extensions made through the informal route it will be a new 125-year lease.
The Government have announced that they're looking to review the lease extension process to give leaseholders the right to extend their lease by a maximum term of 990 years at zero or peppercorn ground rent. The legislation will be brought forward in the current session of Parliament. We'll continue to follow the current guidance until new legislation or changes are implemented.
If we’re not the freeholder of your home you may only be able to proceed with a lease extension if we have sufficient years left on our Headlease. We may need to agree an extension with the freeholder; your costs will be higher if this is the case.
Ground rent is charged as outlined in your lease. Please refer to your lease document for details.
Once you have completed your lease extension your ground rent would become peppercorn.
Find out more about extending your lease on our Home ownership with Latimer page.
It's important for you to consider the costs involved before deciding to extend your lease. You'll be liable to cover all associated legal costs, surveyor’s fees and the cost of the lease extension premium. We'll also charge an administration fee to cover the cost of providing a service to you.
Legal fees may increase if, during the application, additional requests are made in relation to the Lease.
We'll have an online form available soon, together with guidance on extending your lease to help prepare your application. Keep an eye on our home ownership page.
To apply for a statutory lease extension you'll need to contact a solicitor who'll serve a Section 42 Notice on us. They'll also advise you on the process and provide you with the relevant documents for your application.
Independent information is available from the Leasehold Advisory Service.
