Help to Buy & Shared Ownership

The lead time for property searches varies depending on which search is ordered and the demand that our search providers are experiencing. When we get to the point of ordering searches, we will be able to provide a more accurate time scale but a rough estimate is 1 – 10 days.

A lease is a depreciating asset. As the term of the lease decreases its value decreases and the cost of extending the term becomes more expensive.

It can sometimes be difficult to sell a property with a short lease because a mortgage provider may be reluctant to lend money against the short lease term.

If you are claiming a lease extension in accordance with the statutory procedure, then you will benefit from your ground rent being reduced to a peppercorn (nil).

A lease extension is also often seen as an opportunity to modernise outdated terms contained in some older leases.

The time taken to extend a lease depends on a number of variables including the number of parties involved and agreement on the premium and specific terms.

A statutory lease extension is dictated by a timetable that must be adhered to and matters generally take a number of months between serving of notice for claim of a lease extension and completion of the matter.

Lease extensions outside of the statutory procedure tend to proceed more quickly in light of the fact that the premium and any revised lease terms will have been agreed at the outset usually.

You can enter into a cohabitation agreement at any time, either before you move in with a partner, or when you have been living together for many years. The agreement should be reviewed periodically, particularly where there has been a significant change in circumstances, for example the birth of a child.

Having a Declaration of Trust in place can help avoid disputes where someone has made a financial contribution to a property which was not a loan or a gift to the owners.

This is because that contribution may make them a ‘Beneficial Owner’ of the property. This can be considerably complicated to work out who is entitled to what should a property be sold.

Examples of individuals who may have contributed to the costs of the Property but who are not registered as an owner at the Land Registry include:

A person who has contributed a lump sum towards the deposit such as the legal owner’s parents;

The legal owner’s partner who now contributes towards the mortgage and upkeep of the property but is not named as an owner on the title;

Someone who has added value to the property even if they are not an owner, such as the adult child of the legal owner who paid for the extension to be built in which they now live.

All of the above circumstances have individuals who have contributed to the value of the property even though they are not a legal owner as specified on the Land Registry title of the property.

However, they are entitled to a share of the equity of the property even though they are not named on the title. These people are known as ‘Beneficial Owners’. If you are a Beneficial Owner but not a legal owner you may find it difficult to prove how much you are entitled to if the legal owner refuses to acknowledge that you have contributed towards the value of the property.