Lease extension and freehold purchase solicitors in Richmond upon Thames
Very few tall blocks and a great many converted houses, which makes Richmond the borough where collective freehold purchase is most often the right answer — and where the two-flat rule bites hardest, because so much of the stock is exactly two flats.
Acting for leaseholders across Richmond upon Thames
We act for leaseholders across the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames — Richmond, Kew, Twickenham, St Margarets, Barnes, East Sheen, Teddington and Hampton — on lease extensions and collective freehold purchases.
Richmond has less purpose-built leasehold than almost any London borough. What it has instead is Victorian and Edwardian houses divided into two or three flats, which is the building type where buying the freehold works best and where a single neighbour’s decision matters most.
It also has a very large number of buildings already owned by their leaseholders — with all the questions that raises about leases nobody renewed and companies nobody kept filing for.
The two-flat rule, and what happens if your neighbour says no
In most buildings a collective freehold purchase needs qualifying leaseholders of at least half the flats. In a building of exactly two, the Act requires the initial notice to be given by at least two qualifying leaseholders — so both of you. There is no majority to fall back on.
Given how much of this borough is two-flat conversions, it is the first thing we establish and it changes the advice entirely.
Where your neighbour will join, the purchase is usually straightforward. The company grants each of you a new lease of 999 years at a peppercorn afterwards — a better outcome than any statutory extension delivers — and the ground rent disappears permanently.
Where they will not, an individual statutory lease extension is the answer: ninety years on top of your existing term at a peppercorn rent, as of right, with nobody else’s agreement required. Not as good as owning the freehold, but entirely within your control, which owning the freehold is not.
And there is a middle course. A neighbour who will not commit money today may well engage once they see costed figures rather than an idea, or may be willing to sell you their share later. It is worth putting a proper proposal to them — with a valuation and a fee quote — rather than a suggestion over the fence.
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 Richmond upon Thames
The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames holds a comparatively small stock, most of its former council housing having transferred to Richmond Housing Partnership.
Housing associations operating here include Richmond Housing Partnership, Clarion Housing Group, Peabody and Metropolitan Thames Valley.
But the most common landlord in Richmond is the leaseholders themselves, through resident-owned freehold companies, alongside small private freeholders and family trusts who never sold. That changes the work: less negotiation with an opposing landlord, more company law and drafting.
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 Richmond upon Thames 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
Both flats in our house need to agree — what if one owner will not?
Then a collective purchase is not available: in a two-flat building the Act requires both qualifying leaseholders to participate. The alternative is an individual statutory lease extension, which gives ninety years at a peppercorn as of right and needs nobody else’s agreement.
Is buying the freehold of a two-flat house expensive?
Our legal fee starts at £1,500 plus VAT per flat, plus the premium, a valuer’s fee, the landlord’s reasonable costs and disbursements. Where both leases are long the premium can be modest; where they are short it will not be. A valuation is the only way to know.
What is the best way to approach a reluctant neighbour?
With figures. A costed proposal — a valuation of the premium, a fee quote and a clear split — tends to get a different answer from a conversation about the idea. Many neighbours are not opposed; they simply do not know what it involves.
We own our freehold already — is there anything we should be doing?
Probably. Owning the freehold does not lengthen your leases, so if they were short when you bought they are shorter now. Granting new 999-year leases at a peppercorn is straightforward, and it is the moment to correct anything the old leases got wrong.
Tell us about your Richmond upon Thames 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.