Lease length - buying an apartment

[BookMan2]

Considering buying a leasehold apartment in a Victorian terrace in london, does anyone know what a reasonable lease length would be? This has 150 years, I know that’s a couple of life times, but does anyone know if this is short or standard?

Anything over 100 years is very good. 150 is excellent.

Thank you, that’s helpful

I started a thread recently because we are currently helping our daughter to buy a leasehold flat so I have suddenly found out about a lot of things I previously had no knowledge of! The length of lease sounds fine as you only have to worry if it is getting near 80 years remaining, but do check what the ground rent is as if it is above £250 a year (or has the potential to rise above this in the future) it can cause a problem getting a mortgage due to the increased rights it gives the owner of the freehold to repossess their property. There are plans to reform the current leasehold system which hopefully will take these worries away but there is no guarantee that they will happen soon. Good luck.

It’s £1,000 in London @Scottandcharlene

Good point @MinnieMountain , I’m so obsessed with my daughter’s issue I didn’t notice it was London!

Check the service charges too and whether there’s a reserve fund for major works. 150 years is fine for lease length.

Don't forget to check whether there is a ground rent, what the service charge is and whether there is a sinking fund.

@BookMan2
That's a good long lease but also get acquainted with the lingo. It won’t probably apply but do you know what a “marriage value” is?

Think about:
Service charges (they never ever go down.)
Ground rent charges as mentioned above.
Communal area cleaning & regular maintenance.
Costs to refurb communal areas in the future. New roof costs etc? Sinking fund?
Insurances?

I have owned leasehold in the past. Would never do it again. Good luck.

If as you say its a flat in a Victorian terrace that to me implies that its a conversion with maybe two or three flats in the building?

If it were me I would want to know who owns the freehold and whether there are planned repairs scheduled. I'd also want to know about the cost of insurance each year. I would ask if efforts have been made to buy the freehold - 'collective enfranchisement'

In particular I would be extremely cautious about buying a flat in a building where the freehold is owned by a local authority - you may find yourselves liable to make a contribution to the wider costs rather than just having to pay for your own freehold maintenance.

10 years ago or so we were looking at buying a flat in a Victorian terraced road where about half the houses had been converted. We looked at one but discovered that the freehold was owned by the local authority and having worked for a housing law firm I knew this was a potential red flag. We found out we would be liable for a £25-30k contribution to the upgrades programme the authority was undertaking. In addition we would have had to make a service charge payment and a ground rent each year (not huge but several hundred pounds a year). We ended up buying a flat on the same road which had been sold off by the local authority in the 1970s and then converted. With this we bought a share of the freehold and so we arranged freehold insurance between the three joint owners and also got maintenance people in when required. This also gave us power over the leases - so when we came to sell we arranged a lease extension to 999 years which made selling it easy. Although the share of freehold flat was more expensive it was worth it for the extra control it gave us over costs and future liabilities.