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.

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.