Lease extension help

[tartanchange]

We bought a leasehold flat in cash in July 2021 - as part of the sale the former owner agreed to secure a lease extension.

Our lease extension still doesn't seem to have gone through. When I try to chase up the solicitors, they say the application is with the Land Registry and they have nothing further to action.

From the solicitors:

"As your application involves the registering of a new lease, your matter would fall into the category of ‘more complex changes’ of which more than half of these matters are taking longer than a year to process... We will let you know as soon as we hear from Land Registry. I do understand that this is taking a considerable amount of time, which is frustrating. Please do let me know if I can assist with anything in the meantime."

Today we got a letter from our leaseholders suggesting we extend our lease and offering to work with us to extend.

Are leases genuinely taking this long? I feel like we've been swindled but we are so new to property and know so little, I don't know how to figure out what's actually going on.

Any advice would really appreciated.

Thank you!

We bought a house that hadn't been registered ever, this took a year to get registered. However the land registry was really helpful. Just call or email them asking for an update & if there's a reason that you want it expedited tell them. They sped it up for us.

Was the freeholder's letter addressed to you or has it gone to all the flats? Are you sure it is from the freeholder and not an agency trying their luck? The real freeholder (NB you are the leaseholder) should be aware that your lease has already been extended.

Did you ever get written confirmation/proof that the lease extension had been sent to the land registry? They can be slow (as can solicitors) but this does seem unusual. Contact the LR directly.

It sounds like you're new to leasehold property ownership and still figuring out how it all works - it's worth spending some time on https://www.lease-advice.org/ which is a really useful resource with loads of guidance.

The Land Registry is taking a very long time to process these kind of transactions, as they are not seen as a priority. There is an expedite process but that only applies if the sale of a property is at risk.

If your solicitor is satisfied that the lease extension was complete and they have sent it to the LR it does not sound like you should have anything to worry about. Can you ask them to supply you with a copy of the lease extension? Surprised they have not sent this to you before.

On the MSE forum the LR do actually have an account where they respond to LR questions quite quickly. Just go to the last page of the thread and put your question in as a new comment. Link below -

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5685941/land-registry-questions/p510