Buying a flat with a short lease in West London

Many flats in West London are leasehold, from mansion blocks to Victorian houses split into flats. When you buy one, you’re buying the right to live there for a fixed number of years: whatever is left on the lease. When that number gets low, it affects your mortgage, the price, and what you can sell for later.

What counts as a short lease?

There’s no legal definition, but two numbers matter in practice:

• 80 years. At 80 years or less, extending the lease currently becomes noticeably more expensive (more on why below).
• Your lender’s minimum. Each mortgage lender sets its own minimum number of years left on the lease, and some also want a certain number of years to remain at the end of your mortgage term. Ask your broker what applies before you offer.

A lease that looks long on paper may be shorter than you think. Leases count down from the start date written in the original lease, which can be earlier than the date it was signed, not from when the current owner bought. I always check the exact end date in the lease itself.

Why the 80-year point matters

When a lease has 80 years or less left on the date the extension notice is served, the price of a statutory extension currently includes an extra element called marriage value. In simple terms, the freeholder gets half of the increase in your flat’s value that the longer lease creates. That can add a significant amount to the cost.

The cost of extending also rises steadily as the lease shortens, so waiting rarely makes it cheaper under the current rules.

Your options when the lease is short

1. Ask the seller to start the extension

The seller can serve the formal notice to extend the lease (a Section 42 notice) and assign the benefit of it to you at completion. It has to be transferred together with the flat; it can’t be passed on separately. This gets the process started and fixes the date the valuation is based on. The notice has strict deadlines, so I check where it has got to before you exchange. The price you pay for the flat, and who pays the costs of the extension, are both part of the negotiation.

Selling a flat with a short lease? If the lease is near or below 80 years, it is often worth serving the Section 42 notice before you market the flat, so the buyer can take over the claim and the price reflects it. Ask me before you instruct an agent.

2. Buy and extend it yourself

Since 31 January 2025, a new owner no longer has to wait two years before starting a statutory lease extension. You can start the process once you’re the registered owner. Your lender still needs to be comfortable with the lease as it stands on the day you buy.

3. Negotiate a price that reflects the lease

Whichever route you take, the cost of the extension is part of the true cost of the flat. A valuer’s estimate before you agree a price gives you a sound basis for negotiating.

What a statutory extension gives you

Under the current law, if you qualify, you have a legal right to a new lease. In most cases this adds 90 years to the term that’s left and reduces the ground rent to a “peppercorn”: in practice, nothing. You pay:

• a premium to the freeholder, based on a valuation
• your own valuer’s and solicitor’s fees
• the freeholder’s reasonable legal and valuation costs (payable even if the claim doesn’t go ahead; tribunal costs are usually separate)

Some freeholders will agree an extension informally instead. That can be quicker, but the terms vary. Since June 2022 the landlord can’t charge more than a peppercorn for the extra years, but can keep the existing ground rent until the original lease would have ended, and an informal deal may add fewer years or change other lease terms. So it needs checking as carefully as the original lease.

What I check before you commit

• The exact number of years left on the lease, and when it ends
• The ground rent, and whether it can increase
• Service charges, and any planned major works
• The landlord’s and managing agent’s information about the building
• Whether a lease extension has already been started by the seller, and where its deadlines stand
• Whether the flat comes with a share of the freehold
• That the lease meets your lender’s requirements

What about the leasehold reforms?

The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 is set to change how lease extensions are valued, including removing marriage value, and to allow much longer extensions. At the time of writing, most of those changes are not yet in force, and no date has been confirmed. The government has said some provisions need correcting by further legislation. Until the changes arrive, the current rules apply, so it’s wise not to base a purchase on them.

Next step

If you’re looking at a flat with a short lease, call me before you make an offer. I’ll tell you what to check and what to ask the agent, so the price reflects the lease.

Sources

• Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Abolition of the two-year rule (The Leasehold Advisory Service)
• Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 guidance (GOV.UK)

This guide is general information about the law in England and Wales as at October 2026. It isn’t legal advice for your situation, and the law in this area is changing. Please speak to me about your own purchase.