Lease extension and freehold purchase solicitors in Hackney
Warehouse and industrial conversions are a Hackney speciality, and they raise questions ordinary flat leases do not: unusual demises, shared plant, commercial units in the same building, and a 25% test that decides whether the freehold can be bought at all.
Acting for leaseholders across Hackney
We act for leaseholders across the London Borough of Hackney — Shoreditch, Hoxton, Dalston, Hackney Central, Stoke Newington, Homerton and Hackney Wick — on lease extensions and collective freehold purchases.
The borough’s former industrial buildings have been converted at scale, and the leases granted in them are frequently bespoke. Demises that include plant, shared servicing arrangements, commercial units at ground level and service charge machinery adapted from a commercial precedent are all common.
Alongside that sits one of London’s largest council leasehold stocks and a great deal of Victorian conversion, much of it on leases granted decades ago and now genuinely short.
Commercial space, and the test that decides a freehold purchase
A great many Hackney buildings have shops, studios, offices or light industrial units at ground level. Whether that stops the leaseholders buying the freehold turns on one measurement.
The limit is 25% of the internal floor area in non-residential use, disregarding common parts. Above that, the building does not qualify for collective enfranchisement. It is a measurement rather than an impression, and buildings that look as though they must fail sometimes do not — which is why it is worth having measured properly before anything is abandoned.
It has not changed, whatever you may have read. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 would raise the limit to 50%, and that change commenced for right to manage claims in March 2025. It has not commenced for collective enfranchisement and no date has been given. A good deal of published commentary conflates the two.
And if the building does qualify, think about whether you want the commercial units. Acquiring them brings rental income and the obligations of a commercial landlord — rent reviews, repairs, lease renewals under the 1954 Act and the risk of vacancy. For some groups that income is the reason to enfranchise. For others a leaseback of the commercial parts is a better answer, and it reduces the price.
The part the valuer does not do
A lease extension has two halves. One is the premium — a valuation exercise, and the reason to instruct a specialist surveyor. The other is the document you are handed at the end, and it is where a leaseholder is most exposed and least likely to be looking.
On a statutory claim under the 1993 Act the new lease must be granted on the same terms as the existing lease, save for the additional 90 years, the peppercorn rent, and a narrow set of modifications the Act permits — broadly to reflect changes to the property since the original grant, to deal with an interest the landlord no longer holds, or to remedy a genuine defect.
That is a protection, and it is only worth what the solicitor reading the draft makes of it. Landlords’ solicitors will frequently send a draft that is not a copy of your lease at all, and unless somebody compares the two line by line, the changes complete with the extension and bind you for the next century and a half. We check the draft against your existing lease clause by clause, and we resist anything the legislation does not permit.
What we look for in a landlord’s draft
Changes that alter what you pay. Service charge apportionment quietly replaced with “a fair proportion as determined by the landlord”. Widened recovery provisions for management costs, professional fees and reserve funds. New administration charges. Insurance commission made recoverable. Repairing obligations shifted from landlord to leaseholder.
Changes that alter what you may do. A qualified alterations covenant turned absolute, removing the statutory protection that consent may not be unreasonably withheld. New restrictions on subletting or short-term letting. Rights newly reserved to the landlord to build on the roof or run services through your flat. Wider forfeiture provisions, or indemnity covenants the original lease never contained.
None of this is hypothetical, and very little of it is announced. It arrives as a clean engrossment described as being “in the same form as the existing lease”, and it is found only by comparison. Some modifications are legitimate — our job is to distinguish those from the ones that simply improve the landlord’s position, and to say so in writing before anything is agreed.
Landlords and housing associations in Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney holds a very large stock, with a correspondingly large number of Right to Buy leaseholders across the borough’s estates.
Housing associations with significant holdings include Peabody, Clarion Housing Group, Riverside (formerly One Housing) and Southern Housing.
Investor freeholders hold ground rent portfolios across the Victorian conversion stock, and developer management companies run many of the warehouse conversion schemes — where the freeholder may also retain the commercial units.
Areas we cover
Who does what
The valuation
The premium is a question of valuation evidence rather than legal argument, and it needs a surveyor who acts on enfranchisement claims regularly. A specialist valuer appraises the flat, advises on the figure to propose and the range within which to settle, negotiates with the landlord’s surveyor and gives expert evidence at the Tribunal if it comes to that. We work closely with Blakes Chartered Surveyors, and you are free to instruct any valuer you wish.
The legal work
Establishing entitlement, identifying every landlord who must be served, drafting and serving a notice that will withstand scrutiny, running the statutory timetable — and negotiating the terms of the new lease itself. The two roles are not sequential: the figure in your section 42 notice is a joint decision, which is why we involve a valuer from the first conversation rather than after the notice has been drafted.
Or have both handled together
Packaged fixed fees combining the legal work, the valuation and the negotiation are available through extension.lease, run jointly by Arcadia Law and Blakes Chartered Surveyors — often the simplest and most cost-effective route for a single flat.
Estimate your premium
Our lease extension calculator gives an indicative premium range from three figures: the unexpired term, the ground rent payable and the value of your flat. It is a starting point for a conversation rather than a valuation, but it will tell you the order of magnitude before you commit to anything.
If your flat has fewer than 90 years remaining, or a ground rent that rises at intervals of less than twenty years, it is worth running the numbers now rather than at the point you decide to sell.
Fees
Fixed fees wherever possible, agreed before we start. The figures below are starting points for straightforward matters; we will give you a tailored quote once we have seen the lease.
Group and block discounts are available where several leaseholders in the same building instruct together, priced as one exercise rather than a claim per flat. Freehold purchases are priced per participating flat from £1,250 + VAT. On a statutory claim you are also responsible for the landlord’s reasonable legal and valuation costs, which can be challenged — the costs of the negotiation itself and of any Tribunal proceedings are not recoverable from you.
Our other work for Hackney clients
Lease extensions and freehold purchases are the bulk of what we do, but not all of it. Residential conveyancing — sale and purchase of houses and flats, freehold and leasehold — sits naturally alongside a lease extension where a sale is in prospect. Landlords and management companies — service charges, section 20 consultation, arrears, consents, company filings and the transactional work every sale generates. And the documents: deeds of variation, licences to alter, lease and title reviews, and independent legal advice for guarantors and directors.
Why instruct Arcadia Law
We read the lease you are being given, not just the one you have — every draft is compared clause by clause against the existing lease, and anything the legislation does not permit is resisted. Specialists, not generalists, and members of the Association of Leasehold Enfranchisement Practitioners. We act across all thirty-two London boroughs and know how the local authority legal departments and the larger investor freeholders operate. We act for landlords as well as leaseholders, which is why we know where a landlord’s position will and will not hold — conflicts are checked before we take instructions. Tribunal and court where it is warranted, weighed against the costs, the risk and the time, which for many claims points the other way.
Common questions
My building has shops underneath — can we still buy the freehold?
Yes, provided the non-residential internal floor area does not exceed 25% of the whole, disregarding common parts. It is a measurement rather than an impression, and it is worth having done properly before a claim is abandoned.
Did the 25% limit not change to 50%?
Not for freehold purchases. The 2024 Act would raise it, and that change commenced for right to manage in March 2025 — but it has not commenced for collective enfranchisement and no date has been given. A good deal of commentary confuses the two.
How does a warehouse conversion lease differ from an ordinary flat lease?
Frequently in the demise — it may include plant, ducting or structural elements an ordinary flat lease would not — and in the service charge machinery, which is often adapted from a commercial precedent. Both repay reading before any claim.
Do we want to own the commercial units?
It depends on the group. They bring rental income and the obligations of a commercial landlord, including rent reviews and 1954 Act security of tenure. Where the group would rather not, the landlord may take a leaseback of them — which also reduces the price.
Tell us about your Hackney flat
The address, the unexpired term and the ground rent if you know them, and who your freeholder is. If you have received an offer from your landlord, send that too. We will tell you where you stand, what a claim is likely to cost, whether the statutory or voluntary route suits you better — and, if an offer has been made, what is actually in it. The first conversation is at no cost.