Leasehold extensions

[Cybergal]

Does anybody know the laws on leasehold extensions? Must the freeholder sell you an extension if you want to buy it? I want to buy a flat that currently only has 72yrs left on the lease, and the current owner was quoted that a lease extension of 90yrs would cost �10K. However, rather than pay for him to get that now, I'd rather purchase the flat as is and purchase the lease extension myself at a later date.. provided that the option to do so will still be there. How can I minimise the risk that it might not be?

[vicars]

Be careful. The current leaseholder may have more rights than you as a new leaseholder as I believe you may need to be there for 3 years before having the full right to extend the lease. I may be wrong on this but why do you want to extend now? Lenders are more than happy with the term remaining so you only need to be concerned if you are there for years and years and want to move. It would seem a waste of money to extend it back to 99 years now. The option to extend is certainly going to be therefor you though as the law enables you to do this. The law also enables you and other tenants to buy the freehold off the current landlord and create a management company giving you and the other leaseholders ultimate control over things like lease extentions.