There are two ways that you can extend your lease and they are known as the informal route, whereby you contact your landlord and see if they would be willing to sell you a longer lease for a premium or the statutory route. The statutory route is under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development act 1993. There’s quite strict guidelines on the statutory route and it would start with once you have instructed a surveyor who’s carried out valuation report, we would then prepare and serve what’s known as a section 42 notice on your landlord. This will inform them that you want to extend your lease and also put forward the premium, which has come from your surveyors report. On a section 42 notice, if that’s served, it means that you are entitled to an additional 90 years, plus your unexpired term at a peppercorn, which is effectively zero ground rent. Once the section 42 notice has been served, your landlord will have two months in order to serve a reply. They will come back and either admit the claim or refuse the claim. Normally, they admit the claim and they will put forward a premium that they think you should pay. There’s then a period of six months where you’ll negotiate on the premium and hopefully come to an agreement.
