Section Hub
Practical reference guides answering the questions UK leasehold flat sellers ask most often. Each guide covers one topic in depth, from checking your lease length to selling with a problem the buyer's lender will not like.
The Guides section answers the 'what does this mean for my sale' questions that come up when you sell a leasehold flat. Each guide is a standalone reference: one topic, covered in enough depth that you can read it once and act on it.
Four of the guides help you find things out: how many years are left on your lease, how to get a copy of your lease and title documents, who your freeholder and managing agent are, and what it costs to sell. The rest deal with a specific problem that can slow a sale or cut the price: a missing freeholder, a defective lease, a flat above a shop, major works on the way, structural cracks or subsidence, capital gains tax on the proceeds, a share of freehold that has not been kept in order, service charge arrears or a dispute with the freeholder, damp or mould, a lease extension that is still in progress, alterations made without the freeholder's consent, and cladding or fire safety works that are still outstanding. Each one links out to the wider site sections that cover the same topic from a different angle.
The aim is the same as the rest of the site: practical, honest information from inside the leasehold market. Where Sell Flat UK is one of several routes you might consider, the guide says so. Where an estate agency sale or auction is the better route for your situation, the guide says that too.
Sixteen reference guides, each covering one topic in depth.
How to find the remaining lease term from your lease document or the HM Land Registry title register, why you count from the original start date and not your purchase date, and what the number means for your sale.
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What a missing freeholder means in practice, why it surfaces during a sale, the effect on value (typically 10 to 30 percent below market), how to trace the freeholder, the vesting order route and your options to fix the problem or sell as it stands.
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The costs of selling a leasehold flat: estate agent and solicitor fees, the management pack and other leasehold extras, early repayment charges and capital gains tax, a worked example for a £300,000 flat and a comparison of the three sale routes.
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What makes a lease defective, why lenders refuse to lend on one, how to check your lease before you sell, the four ways to fix it from a deed of variation to a tribunal application, and how to sell with indemnity insurance or to a cash buyer.
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Why many lenders restrict flats above shops, takeaways and pubs, which businesses worry them least, the typical discount by type of business, the leasehold quirks of mixed-use buildings and the routes to a sale.
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How section 20 major works are charged, who pays when a flat is sold, why disclosing a notice early decides whether the cost is negotiated or fully discounted, how buyers react and your options, including retentions.
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When you pay capital gains tax on selling a flat and when you do not, the 2026/27 rates and allowance, the costs you can deduct including a lease extension, private residence relief for a former home, and the 60-day deadline.
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Why cracks and subsidence are harder to deal with in a flat than a house, who is responsible for the structure, how buyers, lenders and insurers react, the typical effect on price and the paperwork that keeps a sale on track.
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What passes to the buyer along with the lease, how lenders see it, what to do when the freehold company has been struck off or a co-owner will not sign, and the effect on price when the paperwork has not been kept up.
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How arrears are cleared from the proceeds on completion, what to do when the equity will not cover them, how to sell while a dispute with the freeholder is running, retentions, and what each situation does to the price.
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How to tell condensation, penetrating and rising damp apart, who has to fix each one in a block, how surveyors and lenders react, what the repairs cost and what each situation does to the price.
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How a section 42 claim passes to the buyer with your valuation date, why an informal deal cannot, the deadlines that keep running during a sale, how the premium is handled in the price and what lenders need on completion day.
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What each of the three documents tells you, how to find your title number, the £7 online register and plan, the £11 postal route for the lease itself, the free places to look first and what to check when they arrive.
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What counts as an alteration, what your lease allows, how a buyer's solicitor finds out, the choice between a retrospective licence and indemnity insurance, why you tell your solicitor before the freeholder, building regulations, and the effect on price.
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The three things a lender looks for before it will lend on an unremediated building, the EWS1, landlord's certificate and deed of certificate explained, where the money for the works comes from, the 11-metre line, and what each situation does to the price.
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Who is who in a leasehold building, where their names appear in your own paperwork, the £7 freehold title register, the written request the law says must be answered within 21 days, how to check a company or an agent, and what a sale needs from each of them.
Read the full guide →The Guides section sits alongside several others, each covering a different angle of the leasehold flat sale.
The guides cover the law and practice of England and Wales. Where a point applies only in London, such as the higher lease extension premiums that come with central London land values, the guide says so. Scotland and Northern Ireland have different systems of flat ownership and the guides do not apply there.
If your question is not covered, call 020 7183 5114 or ask through our free valuation form. We are happy to talk a situation through even where the right route turns out to be an estate agent or an auction rather than a sale to us.
