Portsmouth City Council Lease Extensions
If you have a flat where Portsmouth City Council is the freeholder, we can assist you with obtaining an extension of your lease.
Portsmouth City Council, like the majority of Local Authorities, only grant lease extensions via the formal statutory route.
In order to progress with a Statutory Lease Extension, we can lead you through the process by undertaking the necessary valuation and negotiation work. We can, if required also introduce you to a specialist legal advisor who will be able to serve the necessary formal Section 42 Notice and deal with the other legal work including the registration of the lease extension documentation with the UK Land Registry.
Our specialist team of valuation surveyors including Julian Wilkins, Sarah Mawdsley, Martin Geoghegan, Christopher Clarke and Kate Buckley specialise in assisting leaseholders with lease extensions where the freeholder is Portsmouth City Council and each year deal successfully with a large number of cases where Portsmouth City Council is the freeholder.
As well as being the freeholder for Ex Local Authority flats sold under the Right to Buy legislation, Portsmouth City Council is also the freeholder of the private King James Quay and Port Solent developments. As well as dealing with lease extensions in these developments, including lease extensions to simply remove the ground rent, we have also dealt with the purchase of individual house freeholds within the Kings James Quay development under the 1967 Leasehold Reform Act. Please visit Freehold Enfranchisement – Houses regarding the rights of leaseholders to purchase the freeholds of their houses.
The process of extending your Portsmouth City Council lease begins with us undertaking a lease extension valuation to determine the correct premium payable to the Council.
Once the valuation has been completed, your legal adviser will serve a Section 42 Notice on the Council to formally claim your statutory lease extension. This grants an additional 90 years on top of your existing lease term and reduces the ground rent to a peppercorn (nil) per annum.
As landlord, Portsmouth City Council will first review the validity of the Section 42 Notice. Within two months, they will then serve a Section 45 Counter-Notice, confirming your right to extend the lease but typically proposing a higher premium.
Upon receipt of the counter-notice, we will contact Portsmouth City Council’s appointed valuer and negotiate on your behalf to secure the best possible premium for your lease extension. Once terms are agreed, your legal adviser will complete the legal formalities, including drafting the new lease and registering it with HM Land Registry. The entire process usually takes 4–6 months.
A similar procedure applies to the purchase of individual house freeholds.