Lease extension and freehold purchase solicitors in Bromley
London’s largest borough by area, and one where a great many buildings are already owned by their leaseholders. The recurring problem here is not the freeholder at all — it is a share-of-freehold arrangement set up decades ago that has quietly stopped working.
Acting for leaseholders across Bromley
We act for leaseholders and freehold companies across the London Borough of Bromley — Beckenham, Penge, Bromley town centre, Orpington, Petts Wood, Chislehurst and Bickley — on lease extensions, freehold purchases and the tidying up of arrangements that were never quite finished.
Much of the borough’s leasehold stock is Edwardian and interwar conversions divided into two, three or four flats. In a large number of them the leaseholders bought the freehold years ago, formed a company, and then did nothing further.
The leases carried on running down. The company stopped filing. A share never transferred on somebody’s sale. And it all surfaces at once when a flat is put on the market.
The share-of-freehold building that stopped working
It is the commonest instruction we take in this borough, and it usually arrives as “we are trying to sell and the buyer’s solicitor has raised something”.
The leases are still short. Buying the freehold does not alter the leases; they continue on the same terms until new ones are granted. We regularly see Bromley buildings where the leaseholders have owned the freehold for fifteen years and the leases are now under seventy. The fix is straightforward — the company grants each flat a new 999-year lease at a peppercorn, with no premium to negotiate and nobody to persuade — but it has to actually be done.
A share never transferred. Well-drafted articles require an outgoing member to transfer their share, and give the directors the means to compel it. Where that was not followed, a former leaseholder who left in 2009 is still a member, and the current seller cannot transfer what they do not hold.
And the company stopped filing. A confirmation statement and accounts each year, and — with a deadline in November 2026 — identity verification for every director at Companies House. A company that is struck off loses its property to the Crown as bona vacantia, and that property includes the freehold of your building. Recovering it means restoring the company or buying the freehold back, and neither is quick.
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 Bromley
The London Borough of Bromley is freeholder of former council stock across the borough, though a smaller proportion than in inner London.
Housing associations active here include Clarion Housing Group, Peabody, Southern Housing (formerly Optivo) and Hyde Housing.
But the most common landlord in Bromley is the leaseholders themselves. Resident-owned freehold companies hold a very large share of the borough’s conversion stock, alongside small private freeholders and family trusts who never sold. That changes the work: less negotiation with an opposing landlord, more company law, more drafting, and more putting right what was left undone.
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.
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 Bromley 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
Our freehold company was struck off — who owns the freehold now?
The Crown, as bona vacantia. The routes back are restoring the company to the register, which is possible for a limited period and by a former director or member, or buying the freehold from the Bona Vacantia Division. Neither is quick, and both are cheaper than discovering it mid-sale.
We own our freehold but our leases are short — what do we do?
Grant yourselves new 999-year leases at a peppercorn. It is a separate exercise from buying the freehold, but a straightforward one because the company granting them is the one you control. It is also the moment to correct anything the old leases got wrong.
The leases in our building are all slightly different — can they be brought into line?
Yes, and a block-wide renewal is the natural moment. The company controls the drafting and can adopt one precedent for every flat. Where new leases are not being granted, variations can achieve the same result by agreement, or by majority under section 37 of the 1987 Act.
A previous owner never transferred their share of the freehold — how is that fixed?
It has to be traced and regularised, which is easier before a sale than during one. The seller cannot transfer what they do not hold and the buyer cannot become a member, so the transaction stalls while somebody tracks down a leaseholder who left years ago.
Tell us about your Bromley 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.