Your Rights as a Leaseholder and Tenant

Legal Entitlement

The Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, and the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, (‘the Act’) give a leaseholder / tenant, subject to a few qualifying conditions, the right to extend their flat lease by a further 90 years, or to purchase the freehold with co-lessees.

The right to ‘extend’ or ‘purchase’ is an absolute right of the lessee. Once the lessee decides to extend the lease or, in conjunction with others, buy the freehold, the process will provide for such an extension or purchase to be achieved. Either through negotiation between the parties or, in the case of a dispute with the landlord, by the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (“LVT”), the lessee(s) will be able to purchase the freehold or in the case of an individual lessee extend their lease.

A landlord conversely will be entitled to receive fair value for the lease extension or freehold sale. The aim is that both lessee and landlord will achieve a fair and satisfactory result which will leave the parties with exactly what they are entitled to, no more no less.