The Lemon Fool

hi there
my mother owns two properties which need lease extensions.

the properties have different freeholders.

With property 1, the freeholder has been notified and after a 7 week delay, they came back to us to ask us to send a surveyor round. I don't know if it's just bad luck but we now can't seem to get the surveyor motivated to do the work, though he has verbally accepted it via a phone call with mum. We haven't signed anything yet.

With property 2, we have yet to hear from the freeholder at all.

Our solicitor is saying to make them an offer and just go ahead on that basis.

none of this sounds remotely normal to me but I don't have any experience.

Is it normal for a freeholder to drag their feet this way?

TIA for any help.

My standard advice applies here: have a look at the lease extension bits at https://www.lease-advice.org/
Then (1) give them a call if anything needs clarifying. ("them" = Lease Advice). (2) come back here for more...

Some questions that need answering though - all questions apply to each property separately.

1) England and Wales? or another legal jurisdiction?

2) House or flat?

3) Which route has been chosen?
Is mother going down the "negotiated" route or has she served notice to use the statutory route (Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993).

PochiSoldi

thank you Pochi

mum is negotiating.

they are flats.

what is really puzzling is the time frame. The first one took about 7 weeks to get back to us - the solicitor - and did ask us to do a survey. They only replied to us after mum called the freeholder direct. The freeholder had no idea that the solicitor had even got our letter.

It seems we have been unlucky here because the person we asked to do the survey has no interest in doing it - I finally persuaded mum to disengage them this afternoon and will look for someone else.

with the second one, we wrote, via solicitor, about 2 months ago. Solicitor has said he will chase tomorrow.

to be honest, every party involved seems remarkably unbothered and slow - which surprised us - we thought it would be seen as an easy way to make money, especially from the freeholders POV? I'm not sure if we should expect this level of slowness generally, in which case mum is thinking she'd rather name a figure and cut the surveyor step.

any experiences would be appreciated. I can't see why we should overpay for anything but mum is beyond stressed (while simultaneously insisting on doing it herself). If it does cut out weeks of faff, then perhaps we should just make an offer, I don't know. It seems mad to me that all parties are so slow?

Thanks.

Personally, if I'd been a leaseholder for more than 2 years (or if I had "inherited" the right to extend from a vendor), I'd just go down the statutory route.
The statutory route has a strict timetable, and you end up with another 90 yrs on your existing lease, with zero ground rent going forward.

If you choose the "negotiated route", you might end up with a poisoned chalice - a nice long shiny new lease, with a ground rent which increases every N years. You might end up with a flat that scares buyers off.

PochiSoldi
(statutory route, group enfranchisement, share of freehold)

It seems mad to me that all parties are so slow?

Seems par for the course wrt to freeholders IME.

I recently sold my mums leasehold house and both sets of conveyancing solicitors got zero cooperation from the freeholders solicitor (they were always elusive), letters, emails, phone calls, no joy.
I pushed the sale completion through regardless with £150 (+ insurance premium) retained in the client escrow account ('till proof of ground rent payment was forthcoming from the FH solicitors), which I only got back last week, four months after conveyancing was initiated (sale completed six weeks ago)...

My flat development has had more than one freeholder over the years, they are beyond useless, which causes major issues when the managing agents (+ leaseholder management directors) are reliant on them to pursue matters within their legal remit.

Thanks Ilfrasonic

My sister said the same. My only experience of buying property and dealing with solicitors and surveyors was that it all went much faster than I expected!

I hope it's okay to ask another question...while sourcing another surveyor, I've got Terms and Conditions saying "the valuation is intended for the benefit of the recipient only...should not be relied on by any third party".

is that standard wording I wonder? It kind of doesn't make sense but I suppose legal jargon often doesn't make sense to those who aren't working with it.

Thanks.