Lease extension and freehold purchase solicitors in Barnet
Barnet contains two leasehold markets that need opposite advice. The 1930s mansion blocks of Golders Green, Hendon and Finchley have a lease length problem. The Colindale towers have a ground rent problem — and the answer to one is rarely the answer to the other.
Acting for leaseholders across Barnet
We act for leaseholders throughout the London Borough of Barnet — Golders Green, Finchley, Hendon, Mill Hill, Edgware and Colindale — on statutory and voluntary lease extensions and on collective freehold purchases.
The borough’s interwar purpose-built blocks are among the best of their kind in London, and a good many of them were let on 99-year terms that are now well under ninety years. In those buildings the priority is the term, and often the whole block has the same problem at the same time.
Colindale and the newer Mill Hill developments are a different exercise entirely. The terms are long, but the ground rent provisions in a number of these leases escalate on review — and it is the rent rather than the term that a lender objects to.
Term problem or rent problem?
The distinction decides which route is right, and it is worth establishing before anybody instructs a valuer.
Where the problem is the term, a statutory lease extension is almost always the answer. It adds ninety years, reduces the ground rent to a peppercorn across the whole of the new term, and does not depend on the landlord agreeing to anything. In a block where many flats share the same lease and the same expiry date, instructing together is materially cheaper, and we price it as a single exercise.
Where the problem is the rent and the term is long, a lease extension may be using a sledgehammer. A deed of variation capping or extinguishing the ground rent can be quicker and cheaper — with the significant caveat that a landlord is under no obligation to agree one, and there is no tribunal to refer it to. Section 35 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 cannot be used to reduce a ground rent.
So the real question is what your landlord will do voluntarily, and what leverage exists if they will not. Where a lease is long and the landlord is co-operative, a variation. Where the landlord is slow, or the lease is anywhere near eighty years, the statutory route — because it is enforceable.
Landlords and housing associations in Barnet
The London Borough of Barnet is freeholder of flats and maisonettes sold under Right to Buy across the borough, including on the Watling Estate at Burnt Oak. Barnet Homes manages much of the council’s stock, though management and ownership are not the same thing and it is the freeholder who must be served.
Housing associations with significant holdings here include Clarion Housing Group, Notting Hill Genesis, Metropolitan Thames Valley and Origin Housing.
Institutional ground rent investors hold portfolios across the Colindale and Mill Hill developments, and across the interwar blocks in Finchley and Hendon. These landlords deal with claims routinely and often issue a standard form of new lease — which is precisely where clause-by-clause checking earns its keep.
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 Barnet 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 Golders Green mansion block lease has under 80 years — what does that mean?
Once the unexpired term falls below eighty years the premium includes marriage value, half of which is payable to the landlord. It applies the moment the lease crosses the line, measured on the day the notice is served — so if you are close, the date you serve matters more than anything else.
Can a deed of variation remove the doubling ground rent on my Colindale flat?
If the landlord agrees, yes. There is no way to compel it: section 35 of the 1987 Act cannot be used to reduce a ground rent. Where the landlord will not engage, a statutory lease extension removes the rent as of right — which is slower and dearer but does not depend on goodwill.
Several flats in our block have the same problem — is it cheaper to act together?
Yes, materially. Where the leases are in the same form and the landlord is the same, the work is done once and applied across the building. Tell us how many flats are involved and we will price it as a single exercise rather than as a claim per flat.
Barnet Homes manages our block — do we serve notice on them?
No. Barnet Homes manages the council’s stock; the freeholder is the London Borough of Barnet, and it is the freeholder who must be served. Serving the wrong party is one of the more expensive procedural mistakes available.
Tell us about your Barnet 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.