Selling A Short Lease Flat in London

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Leasehold flats are generally seen as having short leases if there are less than 70 to 80 years left on the lease agreement. London in particular is known for having a large number of these properties in several different areas. This guide explains why that situation exists, and also offers tips on how to resolve a short lease, including options for seeking a buyer for it.

1. Why London has so many flats that have short leases
2. Certain parts of London have more short lease flats than others
3. Potential problems with selling a short lease flat in London
4. Options for resolving a short lease at your London flat
5. Four methods for trying to sell a London short lease flat
6. Top questions and answers about selling a London short lease flat

Why London has so many flats that have short leases

London has a broad range of residential properties throughout its many neighbourhoods, from premium freehold homes in high-demand areas like Mayfair through to leasehold flats in suburbs like Islington, and a mix of various types of flats, houses and more everywhere.

One type of property that is well-known in London is a short lease flat. This typically refers to a leasehold flat where someone is the legal owner of the home for the number of years specified in a lease agreement they sign with the freeholder, who is the outright owner of the property. The agreement will also detail other terms, such as how much service charges will cost.

A lease agreement is usually seen as being short if it has fewer than 70 or even 80 years left. Although short lease flats can be found in many parts of the UK, there are a handful of reasons that help to explain why London in particular has so many of them:

• Historic estates. Starting in the 1700s, several family estates developed properties in London, and set restrictive, short lease terms for many of these flats.
• Newer properties. London has seen a lot of modern development, including new flats that in some cases have shorter lease terms than may be found elsewhere.
• Right to buy. When council flat tenants were given the right to buy their homes starting in 1980, they began with 125 year leases but some now have under 80 years left.

Certain parts of London have more short lease flats than others

Although you find short lease flats throughout London, there are certain neighbourhoods that are more likely to feature this type of property compared to other parts, for various reasons. Some examples of the different areas and types of short leases include:

• Former council estates. These “right to buy” flats in areas like Camden and Hackney may have started with regular leases but after decades are becoming short leases.
• Central estates. Found in high-demand, expensive districts like Mayfair, these are flats once or still owned by a limited number of estates that set restrictive lease terms.
• Newer properties. Recently built flats, like in Canary Wharf, might sometimes be initially sold with a shorter lease than might be found in similar properties elsewhere.
• Suburbs. Some of London’s suburbs, for example Islington, have Edwardian or Victorian homes converted into flats that may have had shorter leases to start.

Potential problems with selling a short lease flat in London

If you’re the owner of a short lease flat in London and you are considering selling it, you should be aware that the reduced number of years on the agreement can create some hurdles.

Some prospective buyers will view short lease flats negatively because it means fewer guaranteed years as the legal leasehold owner of the property. This could be a concern for them if they are looking to live the rest of their life in that flat, rather than a handful of years.

These and other buyers might also be hesitant to make an offer on your flat because they could be worried that trying to seek a leasehold duration extension from the freehold owner of the property will be too complicated or too expensive. All of these factors might be enough to make a signifi9cant number of potential buyers no longer be interested in your home.

The office of the mayor of London has a guide to leasehold flats that notes the longer a lease agreement in terms of years, the higher the value of that property typically. Shorter lease flats therefore often sell at lower prices compared to those with lengthy leases, it says.

The guide also notes that anyone considering buying or selling a leasehold flat “should be aware that leases lose significant value when they fall below 80 years. Leaseholders can also find it harder to mortgage or sell properties with leases below this length.”

When a mortgage lender considers approving a loan for someone to buy a property – such as your short lease London flat – they will assess how easy or difficult it will be to resell the home if needed. If the borrower defaults on their mortgage payments, the lender can move to sell the flat and try to recoup the outstanding home loan owed to them form the eventual sale proceeds. But if a lender thinks it will be hard to resell the flat due to the short lease, they might reject the loan application. And that in turn would make it impossible to sell the flat to that buyer.

Options for resolving a short lease at your London flat

If you are the owner of a short lease flat in London, you have a few different options for how to potentially fix the situation – you could try to buy the freehold, seek an extension, or sell.

Try to buy the freehold

Your first choice is to get in touch with the owner of the freehold for the flat and ask them whether they would be willing to sell it to you. If this happened, you would then become the freeholder and outright legal owner of the property, and the short lease problem would cease to exist. In the future, you could then sell the flat as a freehold property without such an issue.

But there are a few barriers to this solution, not least the fact that the freeholder might have no interest in selling to you or anyone else. And even if the owner is open to selling the freehold, they might set a price that is far beyond what you would be able to afford.

Seek a lease agreement extension

A second choice is to contact your freeholder and ask if they are willing to negotiate a lease agreement extension that would add several more years to it, ending the short lease status. But the freeholder might not be willing to grant a lengthy extension, so you could easily end up in a situation where you only extend it a few years before you’re seeking another extension. And the process of trying to get a lease agreement extension can be long, expensive and complicated.

A law called the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act was enacted in 2024 and the various provisions are starting to take effect or will in the future. Among these is a change that now lets leaseholders to seek to either buy their flat’s freehold or extend the duration of the lease immediately after becoming the leasehold owner of the property. Previously, these owners would have had to first wait two years, as the HomeOwners Alliance explains.

But even with this change in the law, there are still challenges involved with seeking an extension and the cost and complexity could prevent this being a viable option for you.

Sell your short lease flat

The third choice avoids the expense and difficulties of trying to either purchase the freehold or your flat or aim to secure a leasehold extension. You could instead seek a buyer for the flat with the lease remaining in its existing short status. The following section of this guide offers more details on what to expect from the various methods available for seeking a buyer.

Four methods for trying to sell a London short lease flat

If you have settled on the idea of attempting to sell your short lease flat in London – regardless of whether you unsuccessfully sought to buy the freehold or extend the lease duration – you have several options available. You could try to find a buyer through an estate agent, you could try a property auction, you could try to sell on your own, or you could sell to a quick buyer.

There are advantages and disadvantages to all four strategies in terms of their time taken, cost and more, so consider the information below before making a final decision.

Selling through an estate agent

A traditional way to sell your flat would be contacting an estate agent, who would take on much of the work involved with finding a buyer. They would prepare a listing that includes photographs of your flat and details about its main features, advertise this, arrange viewings to give potential buyers a tour of the property, hear offers and guide an offer through to a completed sale.

Although this would mean you don’t have to put much work into selling, you will be charged commission if the estate agent manages to sell your flat. This fee would cause your overall selling expenses to increase because it would be deducted from the final proceeds.

And selling this way could take a long time, possibly many months or longer. Remember also that someone can make an honest offer to buy your flat but then change their mind and cancel it. If they do this before the exchange of contracts, the sale falls through. You would then need to start over with seeking a buyer, delaying an eventual sale of your flat much further.

Selling at a property auction

Property auctions are unpredictable, because you might not get any bids on your short lease flat. If that happens, you would need to restart the process of seeking a buyer, prolonging a sale further. Or you might just get one bid at the reserve price, which is the lowest value at which you are willing to sell. A bid at this amount is a binding legal agreement to sell your home, so ensure that you choose a price that will still generate a profit from the sale, even after paying fees.

Selling at an auction can also take a long time, including possibly many weeks or longer between when you decide to sell this way and when the auction takes place. Then, if your home does sell, it might take many more weeks to finalise all of the remaining steps to complete the sale. If you are looking to find a buyer fast, you might want to consider some other methods, such as selling to a quick buyer where the sale should only take a few weeks.

Please note that you will also need to pay commission if you sell your home at an auction, and this would cause your costs to rise because the fee will be taken out of the sale proceeds. You might be able to have the buyer pay a share of your costs, so ask the auctioneer about that.

Selling without any help

A third option for selling a short lease flat in London is doing so without any third-party assistance. This means you would have to prepare a listing, market it, sort out viewings and hear offers, hopefully getting one through to a final sale with the exchange of contracts. This can be a very stressful and time-consuming option, so consider that before deciding.

It might also take many months to find a buyer this way, and even if someone gives you an offer, they could later their change their mind and rescind it. This would stop the sale from happening if contracts are not yet exchanged, and you would then need to start over seeking a buyer, which may end up adding many more weeks or even months to your selling schedule.

Perhaps the only clear benefit of selling without any help is that you would not have to pay an estate agent or an auctioneer any commission when you sell your property, which will help with reducing your total costs. But the other expenses involved with selling – such as advertising your flat’s listing – might cancel out any saving you could have avoided by not paying fees.

Selling to a quick home buyer

The fourth way to sell your flat is by contacting a quick home buyer. These companies, like LDN Properties, make quick and fair offers to buy almost any type of leasehold or freehold flat, house or other type of property.

The process of selling to us is simple – just call one of our friendly team members and describe your home, and within an hour we should be able to make an initial competitive offer for buying it. There’s no need to reply right away because you’ll have at least a week to consider it.

Next, we’ll have one of our representatives arrange a day and time to visit your home and inspect it before we make our final offer. This is the only viewing we would need, whereas other options for selling a flat could end up with you needing dozens of viewings or more.

And the last step, if you accept the final offer, is when we work swiftly with your solicitor or other legal representative to sign the necessary legal papers and handle the other tasks like exchanging contracts and paying you the sale proceeds. The entire schedule from the start to the end should only be a handful of weeks.

And LDN Properties never charges owners any commission when buying their homes. This ensures that you can reduce your selling expenses and count on getting the full proceeds, which makes us a good selection for buyers that are aiming to limit their selling expenses.

✅ What is considered to be a London flat with a short lease?

Leasehold flats are generally seen as having short lease agreements if there are fewer than 70 years left on it, although some people consider 80 years or fewer to be a short lease agreement. By way of contrast, a leasehold flat is considered to have a lengthy lease if it has at least 99 years left to run, and some agreements can be extended up to 125 years or longer.

✅ Why does London have so many flats with short lease agreements?

There are several different factors that help to explain that large number of short lease flats throughout London. Among some of the main reasons are that many former council flats sold under lengthy leases decades ago have now become short leases, that several flats were once owned by estates that set very short leases, and the difficulties with ensuring a lease extension.

✅ Why are London flats that have a short lease seen as harder to sell?

Short lease flats are considered to be less valuable to potential buyers because they are often seen as having less certainty about long-term legal ownership of the home, and it might be costly and complicated to get a lease extension. In addition, buyers may struggle to get approved for a mortgage because lenders may be wary about this type of property.

✅ What should I do to resolve having a short lease at my flat in London?

You have a few different choices for how to proceed in this situation, with one option being to ask the freehold owner of the flat if you can buy the freehold. Another solution could be asking the freeholder to agree to extend the duration of the lease. And a third step that you might want to think about taking is looking to sell the flat without extending the lease agreement.

✅ If I want to sell my London short lease flat, what are my options?

When you’re ready to seek a buyer for your home, you could consider selling it to an honest quick buyer such as LDN Properties, try your luck with a property auction, use the services of an estate agent, or attempt to sell it without any help. Be sure to learn about what’s involved with each option because the strategies vary based on how much they cost and how long they take.

✅ Does every method for selling a short lease flat in London charge fees?

If you decide to sell your flat using the help of an auctioneer or an estate agent and they succeed in finding a buyer and exchanging contracts, you will have to pay commission on the sale. This fee will be taken out of the sale proceeds and add to your costs. But if you sell on your own or to a legitimate no-fee quick buyer then you will not have to pay any commission.

✅ Will all four options for selling a short lease London flat take the same time?

They are not all the same because selling to a quick buyer like LDN Properties will often only take a few short weeks, and that covers the vital last steps of exchanging contracts and paying the full proceeds to the seller. But it might take several months or longer to sell your flat without any assistance or to sell it using the support of an auctioneer or an estate agent.