Selling A Short Lease Flat in Fitzrovia

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If you own a flat in London’s Fitzrovia district that has a short lease – typically meaning it has fewer than 70 or 80 years left on the lease agreement – you have a few different solutions available. This guide explains the history of short lease flats in Fitzrovia and offers tips on how to resolve the situation, including the best way to attract a fair and fast offer for your home.

1. How to know whether your flat is considered to have a short lease
2. Explaining why Fitzrovia has so many flats with short leases
3. Options available for fixing a short lease at your Fitzrovia flat
4. Buyers could view Fitzrovia flats with short leases as less valuable
5. Four methods to find a buyer for your short lease Fitzrovia flat
6. Top queries and answers about selling a Fitzrovia short lease flat

How to know whether your flat is considered to have a short lease

Fitzrovia, located in central London, is a diverse neighbourhood that has a mix of many different types of residential, commercial, business and healthcare properties.

It’s well known for being where you can find famous spots like Great Portland Street and Tottenham Court Road, and the landmark BT Tower, which is over 177 metres tall, is here. More than 8,000 people live in the district, according to the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association. And many of those residents own short lease flats.

Determining whether or not your flat has a short lease is relatively straightforward. Properties in the neighbourhood are either freehold, where you’d legally own the home outright as the freeholder with no restrictions, or leasehold. The latter type of property is one where you own it – typically a flat – for a set number of years, as specified in the lease agreement that you sign with the freeholder, which also includes terms such as the annual ground rent you will pay.

Lease agreements of conventional length typically start at 99 years, although in some cases they can begin at 125 years or potentially even longer. You’re considered to have a short lease if it has under 70 years left to run, although some people consider 80 years to be a short lease.

Explaining why Fitzrovia has so many flats with short leases

London’s Fitzrovia neighbourhood is similar to several other parts of the city in sharing the unique feature of having far more short lease flats than elsewhere in the UK.

Just as in Kensington, Marylebone, Soho and other locations within London, one of the primary reasons for why Fitzrovia has a significant number of flats with a short lease is because of historic ownership of land and property in the area by a handful of estates. These estates, passed down through the generations, continue to own many leasehold flats in the area.

The Langham Estate, for example, says on its website that is has owned and managed properties in Fitzrovia, including Fitzrovia Quarter, for over 100 years. And it’s far from the only such estate to own flats and other properties in the area.

Much of the land in Fitzrovia was undeveloped until the 18th century, when estate owners start to build homes and other properties. This included flats, and many of these flats either started with what would now be considered short leases. Or these flats began with conventional leases that over the years have been renewed and run long enough that they have so few years left to go that they are now viewed by potential buyers and others as being short leases.

Options available for fixing a short lease at your Fitzrovia flat

Should you be the owner of a short lease flat in Fitzrovia, you have a few different solutions available for deciding how to proceed. There are three typical options, and they are seeking a lease extension, attempting to buy the flat’s freehold, or selling with the short lease.

Read all of the information about all three methods below carefully before making a choice, as they vary in costs, time taken and more – and some may not be viable for your unique needs.

Seeking a lease extension

One way that you can fix a short lease flat at your property is to ask the freeholder to approve an extension, which would add many more years on to the duration of the lease agreement. This could push it past the 99 year mark, making it then seen to be a conventional lease.

But this can involve a lot of costs and it might also take a very long time, which may not be ideal depending on your budget and willingness to wait to secure the extension. Remember also that the freeholder is not under any obligation to approve the lease extension, so this might not even be an option if they have no desire in adding more time on to the remaining years.

Attempting to buy the freehold

Another solution that you might want to think about pursuing is asking the freehold owner of the property whether they could be willing to sell your their freehold. This would then make you the outright legal owner of the flat, eliminating the lease issue entirely as no lease would apply.

Be aware, however, that the freeholder does not have any obligation to sell you the freehold of the property, which would prevent this fix from working. Or they might be open to selling it but the cost of the freehold will likely be very high and could be far outside of what you can afford.

Selling with a short leasehold

Or you could simply decide that you don’t want to seek a lease agreement extension or to buy the freehold, in which case you could move to sell the property without changing the lease.

This is viable option, depending on which method you choose for finding a buyer. Although there are some potential buyers that will have minimal interest in purchasing a short lease flat in Fitzrovia, others – like LDN Properties – can give you a fair and fast offer even with the short lease. Later on in this guide you can find out more about this and other selling options.

Buyers could view Fitzrovia flats with short leases as less valuable

If you’re thinking about selling your home without attempting to extend the lease, you should be aware that certain buyers may view your property as less valuable due to the short lease. But this does not mean that getting a fair and fast offer for selling the flat will be impossible.

The main reason why some buyers could consider your short lease flat to not be as valuable as one with a long lease is that it creates uncertainty about their long-term future ownership of the property. They might worry that securing a lease extension as the next owners could be difficult, time-consuming and expensive, and there’s no guarantee that the freeholder will approve it.

Another important consideration is that buyers might not be able to afford purchasing your flat, if they can’t get approved for a mortgage for the transaction. Home loan providers can be wary about approving mortgages for short lease flats, because they worry that the property will be very difficult to resell in the future, if needed. If a borrower defaults on their mortgage payments, a lender can move to repossess the home and resell it to recoup the outstanding amount on the loan. If the lender believes that there will be major challenges in selling the flat in such a situation, they could deny the loan request, preventing the buyer from purchasing your home.

But, as you’ll see in the next section of this guide, it’s still possible to sell your short lease flat for a competitive and speedy offer, depending on how you decide to seek a buyer for it. One such solution is getting in contact with a quick home buying company such as LDN Properties that has extensive experience with making fair and fast offers to buy short lease flats in London.

Four methods to find a buyer for your short lease Fitzrovia flat

After reviewing the three typical solutions available for resolving a short lease at your Fitzrovia flat, you might have settled on attempting to sell the home without changing the lease.

If that’s the case, you can typically select from selling to a quick home buying company like LDN Properties, trying to find a buyer through a property auction, selling your home with the support of an estate agent, or selling on your own. All four methods range based on how they take, whether they charge sellers any commission, and other factors, so review them closely before making your selection.

Selling to a quick home buyer

Quick buyers are companies such as LDN Properties that have the funds available to purchase leasehold and freehold homes right away. The honest quick buyers never charge sellers any commission and the buying process often takes just a handful of weeks to complete.

Start by calling the quick buyer and describing your flat, and within an hour they should be able to make an initial offer for purchasing the property. After that, they’ll arrange for a representative to visit your flat, in order to assess the interior and exterior ahead of the quick buyer making a final offer. And the last step is when they work speedily with your solicitor or other legal professional to sign the necessary documents, exchange contracts and pay you the proceeds.

In addition to getting a swift sale with a quick buyer, you also won’t have to pay any fees, which helps to minimise your selling expenses and ensure you’ll receive the full sale proceeds.

Quick buyers also have plenty of experience making fair and fast offers to purchase “problem” properties, which can include short lease flats. This means that you do not need to worry about getting a non-competitive offer from a quick buyer just because your flat’s lease is short.

Selling at a property auctioneer

If you decide to sell your home with an auctioneer, they will do most of the work in trying to find a buyer. This starts with creating and advertising a listing that describes your flat and includes photographs of the property, then hosting the auction, and overseeing a successful sale.

All of these tasks can take a long time and you should not be surprised if you end up waiting months before the auction takes place. Even then there is no promise that your flat will sell at the auction. If it remains unsold, you would then need to begin again with seeking a buyer, which could add many more weeks or even months on to your selling timeline.

Auctioneers will also charge you commission if they manage to sell your flat, and this fee will add to your costs because if will be subtracted from the eventual sale proceeds.

You should also ask auctioneers about their past success rate with selling a short lease flat in Fitzrovia. If they have zero experience with selling such a home, this implies that they might find it difficult to get buyers interested in your flat, making a sale at the auction less likely.

Selling via an estate agent

Another option for selling your Fitzrovia short lease flat is enlisting the help of an estate agent. Much like an auctioneer, they will put in most of the effort to find a buyer, starting with producing and marketing a listing for your flat, then organising viewings to give prospective buyers a tour of the property, hearing offers, and attempting to guide one to the exchange of contracts.

For putting in all of this work, the estate agent will charge you commission and this fee will be subtracted from your final sale proceeds, which will increase your overall expenses. If you are looking to save money when selling, you may want to review some no-fee options, for example getting in touch with an honest zero-commission quick home buyer like LDN Properties.

Selling with an estate agent can often also be a very slow process, and you should be prepared to wait many months or sometimes even more than an entire year to get a serious offer from a buyer. And someone can make a legitimate offer to buy your flat but then later change their mind and rescind it, which would cause the sale to fall apart. You would then have to begin again with looking for a buyer, which will further extend your overall schedule for selling.

It’s also a good idea to check with specific estate agents about their track record with selling Fitzrovia short lease flats, because an estate agent that has no history of successfully finding a buyer for this category of home may not know how to attract buyers to your property.

Selling without any assistance

Or you may want to attempt selling your flat without any third-party help, which puts the burden on you to take care of all the actions needed to find a buyer for your property.

This can be a very time-consuming and stressful option because you will need to put together a listing, advertise it, schedule viewings for potential buyers, hear offers, and then attempt to get a serious offer through to the exchange of contracts. This is not something you can simply do in your spare time, and the selling process might take many months or possibly longer.

Also, a buyer can make an honest offer but then later change their mind and cancel it, which will make the sale collapse. They can do this without penalty if contracts are not yet exchanged, and you would then have to start over seeking a buyer, delaying a final sale even further.

Potentially the only clear benefit of selling on your own is that you won’t have to pay any commission. But this saving might be eliminated by the funds that you would have to spend on the various tasks involved with selling, such as paying for advertising your flat’s listing.

✅ How do I check whether my Fitzrovia flat is considered to have a short lease?

Leasehold flats are those where you own the property for a specific number of years, as laid out in the lease agreement that you sign with the outright legal owner of the home, called the freeholder. You’ll considered to have a short lease flat if there are under 70 years left on the lease agreement, although some people view 80 years leases as being considered short.

✅ Why does Fitzrovia have a large number of flats with short leases?

Among the main reasons for the neighbourhood having a greater share of short lease flats compared to other parts of the UK is the fact that much of the district is owned by estates that build properties in the area over the last couple of centuries. Many of the flats that were built either started with short leases or their lease agreements are now considered to be short,.

✅ What solutions are available if my Fitzrovia flat has a short lease?

There are a few different options that you could pursue to resolve your short lease. You could ask the freehold owner of your flat to extend the number of years left on the lease, you can attempt to purchase the freehold of the property, or you could seek to sell the flat without changing the lease, and all three vary in terms of cost, time taken and other factors.

✅ Why do some buyers view a short lease flat as being less valuable than a long lease?

This is because they see a short lease as leaving significant uncertainty about long-term ownership of the flat compared to a property that has a long lease of 99 years or more. You may also find that certain mortgage providers will deny a buyer’s request to fund a home loan for a short lease flat, which would then make that person unable to purchase your property.

✅ What methods are available for selling my Fitzrovia flat with a short lease?

Generally, you can select from selling your flat to an honest no-fee quick home buying company such as LDN Properties, attempting your luck with a property auction, enlisting the help of an estate agent, or selling without any help. You should consider the advantages and disadvantages of each option carefully because they differ in length, expense and more.

✅ Will I need to pay commission when selling my short lease flat in Fitzrovia?

Not if you decide to sell your home to a legitimate zero-commission quick buyer like LDN Properties or if you opt for selling without any third-party help. But you will have to pay commission if you sell your property through an auctioneer or an estate agent, and this fee will increase your expenses because it will be subtracted from the final sale proceeds.

✅ How long will it take to find a buyer for my Fitzrovia flat that has a short lease?

If you get in touch with LDN Properties or another quick home buyer, you should find that the selling timeline is just a handful of weeks, and this covers exchanging contracts and paying you the full sale proceeds. If you instead choose to sell your home at an auction, via an estate agent, or without any help, you could find that it takes many months or possibly even longer.