McDowalls have a growing reputation in this complex and often misunderstood area of valuation. We have a team of staff who deal with lease extensions, headed by the firms owner, Chris Baker. McDowalls has acted for both lessees and freeholders on a regular basis and have undertaken this type of work for over 40 years.
If you have owned the property as a lessee for 2 years or more you have the right provided by the 1993 Leasehold Reform Act to ask the freeholder for the grant of a new lease for a term of 90 years, plus the present unexpired term, all at a nil ground rent. This is known as the formal route and it involves the service of a legal notice under S42 under the 1993 Act after first obtaining a valuation of the proposed lease extension cost.
It is useful to have available at the date of the valuation:
The next stage to instruct a valuer who will ask to arrange an inspection of your property, this may be with yourself or your tenants, we realise that more and more flats are let out and as such we go the extra mile of working early and late in the day to cause as little disruption to you as possible. We provide you with a realistic valuation that is the figure we would expect in our opinion to be agreed if the matter were to proceed to a Leasehold Valuation Tribunal but we also give advice as to the "best and worst" case valuation, in order to best advise you the possible outcome of the negotiations.
The notice is prepared by a firm of solicitors you can of course use your own if you wish but not all solicitors regularly undertake this type of work and we have found some firms simply do not have a member of staff well versed in this area of property law. We can if asked but forward names of solicitors we have worked alongside who we know are well placed to deal with the complex law in this specialised area.
We as valuers start the process of getting the opposing side to see our clients point of view and try and narrow the issues that may remain between the two sides, looking for areas within the valuation that can be agreed and other areas where they maybe wide differences in opinion as to the values of the property where matters remain in dispute.
If the two parties cannot reach agreement then the parties can apply to the LVT ( Leasehold Valuation Tribunal) to make the decision as to the correct premium that should be paid for the extension in question.
McDowalls are here to help guide you through this process and we aim to achieve the best possible result for our clients
