How do I find how long remains on my lease?

What is a leasehold property?

You’re the owner of a leasehold property if you have bought a home under a leasehold agreement that gives you ownership for a set period, typically between 99 and 999 years. At the end of the agreement the ownership rights return to the freeholder. In contrast, a freehold home is one where the owner has the absolute rights to the house or flat and can sell it without restriction.

If you’re currently on a lease at your home and are thinking about selling it, then it’s vital that you find out how long your lease has left to run. Not only will it help to give you certainty on the remaining duration, but it will give you an idea of how valuable some potential buyers might consider your home. That’s because properties that have short leases, generally said to be those leases with 70 to 80 years or less left to run, are not considered as attractive to someone looking to buy a home.
There are a few reasons why properties with a short lease are seen by many prospective buyers as less valuable. Some people will be concerned about the potential to resell the home at a profit in the future, and some short lease properties also tend to be more in need of repair.

Whatever your reason for wanting to sell your leasehold home – whether it’s because you inherited the property and aren’t looking to keep it, you need to raise funds for a move to another country, you have found your next dream property, or anything else – you’ll need to choose how to find a buyer.

This guide will walk you through not only the steps involved with finding out how long remains on your lease, but also your options for how to sell it once you have this information.

What options do I have for finding out the remaining duration of my lease?

There are two main options you have to discover the exact amount of time you have left on your lease; asking your estate agent or searching online and paying a fee for the information.

Asking your estate agent or solicitor

This is perhaps the simplest of the two options, and also the choice that will likely mean you don’t have to spend any money. You could talk to the estate agent you worked with to buy your leasehold property and ask them if they can provide the information, which they should have readily available in their copy of the leasehold title.

You could also call your solicitor that handled your purchase of the leasehold home and ask for the same information, but legal professionals are more likely to charge you a fee even for relatively straightforward tasks like looking up the duration of your lease.

Searching online and paying a fee

You could also get online and search for your leasehold title in order to find out how much time it has left to run, and you can do this for a relatively small fee.

The simplest way to do this is visit the website of HM Land Registry, which oversees property registrations in England and Wales. Once on the website you can search your home’s address to see if it is registered, and if so you can pay to obtain the title register that will tell you how long remains on the lease, for a cost of £3.

If your lease is short, can someone get a mortgage to buy your home?

Once you have gone through the various steps to find out the duration of your lease, you may discover that there is not much time left on it compared to other properties. One complication that can arise is that buyers may struggle to get approved for a mortgage to afford purchasing it.

That’s because lenders may be wary about the future resale value of the home and refuse to grant a mortgage, and if the buyer was relying on such a loan then the sale won’t be able to happen. When a lender authorises a mortgage, the borrower agrees to repay it in monthly instalments plus interest. If the borrower defaults on these repayments, the lender could move to repossess it and sell the home, recouping the outstanding debt from the sale proceeds.

But a lender could assess a property with a short lease remaining and determine that chances for extending the agreement are slim, and that the home will only get less valuable in the future because the time left on the lease will keep declining. As a result, they would reject the borrower’s application for a loan, which would block them from being able to buy your home.

Therefore, if you find out that your property doesn’t have many years left on the lease then this could make it very difficult to sell your home to any buyer that would need to use a mortgage, as Property Accelerator says.

If this situation applies to your flat or house, don’t panic that you will never be able to sell it, as you still have some solutions to pursue even without extending your lease.

One simple fix is to get in touch with a quick home buyer like LDN Properties, as these companies are experts at making fast and fair offers to purchase all types of homes – including leasehold properties with short leases remaining. You’d get a sale that’s completed within weeks, and also avoid having to pay any commission to the quick buyer.

Four options to find a buyer for your leasehold flat or house

After you have gone through the work of confirming how much time remains on your home’s lease, you can then turn your attention to choosing which approach to use for selling it.

The four standard selections are selling to a quick home buyer, selling through an estate agent, selling at an auction, or selling without any help. You will discover that there are prominent strengths and weaknesses with the different choices based on crucial factors such as whether they will charge you commission on the sale, the typical timeline, and other issues.

You might find it useful to think of your main priorities with the sale, including your preferred selling price, how fast you want to sell, and whether you are willing to pay any commission. Then compare these elements against the information about all four strategies below, and this should help with narrowing down the options to the one that most closely suits your scenario.

Selling to a quick home buyer

Quick buyers are companies such as LDN Properties that have the financial resources in place to purchase all types of leasehold and freehold homes right away. They don’t need to wait for many weeks or even months to get approved for a mortgage, cutting the typical timeline for selling this way to a few weeks, and that covers all the steps from the start to the end.

They’re also a good choice if you find out that your property has a short lease remaining, because quick buyers and renowned for making fair and fast offers on most homes, no matter their age, condition, location, shape, size or type. And that includes “problem” properties with issues like structural damage, legal fights or other aspects that may deter some buyers.

For example, LDN Properties started buying homes in the UK more than 20 years ago and since then its ever-growing list of purchases has included, but is not limited to, right to buy properties, houses owned by hoarders, high-rise flats, homes with septic tanks, properties without a completion certificate, houses without planning permission, flats situated near a roundabout, homes that have a flooded basement, and many other varied situations.

Legitimate quick buyers will also never charge a seller any commission when purchasing their property, which helps with keeping your overall selling costs low. Compare that to selling via an auctioneer or an estate agent, which are two choices that will require paying commission if they manage to sell the property, in turn increasing your overall selling expenses.

Selling through an estate agent

When you sell a home with an estate agent, they will do most of the work, starting with making a listing that describes the property and features photographs of the interior and exterior. They’ll promote this in their office, online and in the local newspaper, and then arrange viewings for anyone interested to tour the home. Finally, they will hear offers from potential buyers, with the aim of guiding a serious offer to the last stage of exchanging contracts.

If an estate agent is able to sell your house or flat, they will charge you commission to compensate for the effort that they put in to finding a buyer. Expect this to be charged at a rate from 1.15 percent to 1.40 percent of the home’s sale price, but it be above or below this range. The fee is deducted immediately from the sale proceeds, causing your costs to rise.

This is also not a great option for those owners that want to secure a buyer as fast they can, because it can take several months or even more than an entire year to sell this way. If you are looking for a swifter sale then there are other choices available, such as selling to a quick home buyer where it should only take a few short weeks to complete the entire process.

After following the steps in this guide, you might find that your property has a short lease. If so, you should ask individual estate agents if they have ever sold such homes previously. If not, it implies that they could find it difficult to get buyers interested in your property.

Selling at an auction

Auctioning a home is unpredictable because you might get no bids on it, meaning it doesn’t sell. You’d then have to begin again with seeking a buyer, adding much more time to your selling schedule.

Or you may get a single bid at the lowest price at which you’ve agreed the property can sell. This is known as the reserve price, and a bid at this level is a binding legal agreement that you will sell your house or flat. If you try to cancel the sale after the auction, the person that placed the build could sue you to force the sale through, which is a scenario you want to avoid.

Choose your reserve price carefully, accounting for the commission that the auctioneer will charge you, and find a value that should produce a profit even after paying this fee. Typically, an auctioneer will charge commission at about 2.5 percent of a home’s sale price, but the rate may be above or below this. It’ll be taken out of the auction proceeds, adding to your expenses.

The fee pays for the auctioneer’s work in creating a listing for your property, advertising it, hosting the auction and finally overseeing the completion of a successful sale.

If you have looked into the time left on your lease and find that it is short, you might also find it harder to sell this way because some auctioneers might have no experience with successfully selling such properties, suggesting they might struggle to sell yours. Check with individual auctioneers about their track record with selling such homes before using their services.

It can also take a long time to sell a property through an auction, starting with a wait of several weeks or possibly months from when you choose this method until when the auction takes place. And if your home sells, the winning bidder usually has about a month to complete all of the needed tasks to finalise the purchase, such as signing all the required papers.

Selling without any help

Yet another way to sell your leasehold home is on your own, which means you’ll handle all the steps needed to identify a buyer. You will need to produce a listing, advertise it, plan viewings, hear offers and eventually try to convert an honest offer to the exchange of contracts.

All of these tasks require a significant commitment of time and energy, and it won’t be something you can just defer to your spare time. This is why selling without any assistance is typically suggested only for owners that have been able to sell a property before, or that have a suitably experienced friend or family member that can assist with a sale at no charge. Even with such knowledge, it might still take over a full year before you manage to sell.

There’s also the potential problem of someone making a true offer to purchase your property but then later deciding against it and cancelling the offer, causing the sale to fall apart. They’re allowed to do this without any penalty if you have not yet already exchanged contracts. And it would add much more time to your selling calendar as you’d need to start over seeking a buyer.

Perhaps the only obvious benefit of selling this way is that you would prevent having to pay commission on the sale to an auctioneer or estate agent, which reduces your costs. Yet you might find that any saving you achieve as a result is easily eliminated by the money that you will have to spend on the various tasks needed to sell your home, such as advertising the listing.

Instead, think about selling your home to a no-commission quick buyer like LDN Properties. This would give you the same benefit of not having to pay any commission on the sale, but with the extra perk of selling on a much more rapid timeline. Quick buyers are usually able to complete all the steps for buying a house or flat within a few weeks after you first get in touch with them.