Is your lease running out? Act now or costs can spiral | Money | The Guardian

Is your lease running out? Act now or costs can spiral | Money | The Guardian

Do you have a lease with less than 80 years to go? Then act now to protect the value of your flat by either extending the lease or, together with other leaseholders in the block, buying the freehold and taking a "share of the freehold" in your building.

Don't wait until you are thinking of selling your property – that may be too late. Obtaining a lease extension or what's called "collective enfranchisement" (buying the freehold interest) can take a long time – sometimes a year or more. And put simply, as the lease gets shorter, the more expensive it will become to extend.

Once a lease has less than 80 years left, it becomes more expensive to extend or buy your share of the freehold, as the "marriage value" – the potential for increase in the value of the flat arising from the grant of the new lease – is also payable to the freeholder.