Sell your short lease flat fast — without paying to extend the lease first.
Lenders won't lend on it, buyers keep walking away, and the extension quote is more than you want to pay. We buy the flat exactly as it stands, short lease and all. One cash offer, no premium to find, no freeholder to chase — anywhere in England.
Extend, then sell via an agent
As it stands, to us
Buyers can't get a mortgage. Extending is slower and dearer than it sounds.
The standard advice is “just extend the lease”. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 has made that easier — the old two-year ownership wait has gone — but it hasn't made it quick, cheap or certain. You still need a valuation, a formal notice, a freeholder who responds and a premium paid up front, usually before you know whether a buyer will complete. Meanwhile every year that passes pushes the flat further under the lender's line. For a lot of owners, selling the flat as it stands has gone from the last resort to the sensible option.
Lenders draw the line at 80–85 years
A buyer's mortgage runs 25 years or more, so lenders want a lease that comfortably outlasts it. Most ask for 80 to 85 years remaining; many refuse flats under 70. Below the line, the only buyers left are people paying cash.
The extension bill grows every year
Under 80 years the cost of extending usually jumps, because the freeholder is entitled to a share of the uplift in the flat's value (“marriage value”). Waiting to see whether it sells makes the premium bigger, not smaller.
Solicitors find everything else
A doubling ground rent, rising service charges, a managing agent who takes weeks to send the information pack, a block with no up-to-date insurance details or fire-safety paperwork. Each one gives a buyer's solicitor a reason to pause.
Then the valuer marks it down
Even a buyer who finds a lender will see the flat valued with its lease problem priced in, and renegotiate or walk. Roughly one in four sales falls through at that point, and you start again with the lease a year shorter.
We take the lease as it is. You don't extend, vary or pay for anything.
Selling a short lease flat to us is a normal sale of the flat with the lease you already have. Here's what happens to each piece, so you know exactly what you're agreeing to before we make an offer.
The lease
Stays exactly as it is. There's no extension for you to apply for, no deed of variation to negotiate and no premium to find before we can buy.
The extension
Ours to deal with after completion. Since January 2025 a new owner can start the statutory extension straight away, with no two-year wait, so we serve the notice and pay the premium ourselves.
Ground rent & service charge
Apportioned to the day of completion, exactly as on any leasehold sale. If you owe the freeholder arrears, they're cleared from the proceeds, so the flat transfers clean.
The freeholder & managing agent
We handle the correspondence. If the freeholder charges for the information pack or for registering the sale, we tell you before we make an offer, so the figure you see is the figure that lands.
Your mortgage
If there's one on the flat, it's repaid from the proceeds at completion. It doesn't matter that your lender may now be nervous about the lease, because we aren't borrowing against the flat.
The paperwork
The lease, recent service charge accounts, ground rent demands and the buildings insurance schedule — plus the EWS1 fire-safety form if the building has one. If a piece is missing we'll tell you whether it matters before we offer.
From first message to completion, without touching the lease
The same four steps we use for every purchase, with a lease check in place of a long wait.
Tell us about the flat and the lease
Postcode, type of flat, years left, ground rent and service charge. The form takes a minute; WhatsApp works too.
Get a firm cash offer
We look at the flat, the building and the lease, and come back with a figure you can rely on — usually within the hour. No obligation.
Send the lease pack
A copy of the lease, service charge and ground rent paperwork, and the freeholder's details. We instruct and pay for solicitors on both sides and chase the managing agent for you.
Complete
Ground rent and service charge apportioned to the day, any mortgage repaid, the money lands. Typically 14 days from acceptance.
What we'll ask you for
- A copy of the lease (we can pull it from the Land Registry if you don't have it)
- The years remaining and the current ground rent
- The last three years of service charge accounts
- Recent ground rent and service charge demands, and any arrears
- The buildings insurance schedule
- Freeholder and managing agent contact details
- The EWS1 fire-safety form, if the building has one
- Any extension notice or major works notice already served
Extend then sell vs. sell as it stands: a typical two-bed flat
Take a 2-bed first-floor flat worth £120,000 with a long lease, but with 68 years left and £150 a year ground rent — the kind of flat we're asked about every week in Lincoln, Carlisle and Grimsby. It has been owned for six years and the lease was never touched.
| 2-bed flat, 68 years left | Extend the lease, then sell | Sell as it stands to us |
|---|---|---|
| Time before it can be marketed | 6–9 months: valuation, formal notice, the freeholder's response, negotiation and completion of the extension — longer if the freeholder is absent or disputes the figure | None — offer the day you ask |
| Sale price | £114,000 (95% of the long-lease value, after a survey chip) | £79,680 cash offer (fixed) |
| Extension premium | −£20,400 (estimated; set by valuation and can come back higher) | £0 |
| Valuers & solicitors for the extension, both sides | −£3,500 | £0 |
| Agent, conveyancing & EPC | −£5,180 | £0 — we pay both sides' solicitors |
| Ground rent, service charge & insurance while waiting | −£2,400 (about 12 months) | −£100 (14 days) |
| Chance it falls through | Roughly 1 in 4 once it's on the market | None — no chain, no lender |
| Time to money | 12–15 months, if it completes first time | About 14 days |
| Net in your pocket | ≈ £82,520 | ≈ £79,580 |
Worked example, not a valuation. Extending first and selling through an agent can leave you with more — here by roughly £3,000 — if the freeholder cooperates, the premium comes in at the estimate and the buyer's lender behaves. It also means paying about £24,000 before you meet a buyer, waiting a year, and carrying the risk that the premium comes back higher. If you have the cash, the time and a responsive freeholder, extending first is worth pricing. If not, selling as it stands buys you a date and a certain number. Your own figures are in the comparator at the top of the page.
The places where short lease flats are most of what we're asked about
Converted houses, town-centre flats and small blocks where the lease was never extended and the freeholder isn't always easy to reach. Each page below has the local detail: what a flat there is worth and what the buyer pool looks like.
Somewhere else? We buy short lease flats anywhere in England. Start from the county: Cumbria · Lincolnshire · or just send the postcode.
Selling a flat with a short lease: what the number of years really means
A lease is a countdown. When it started it might have run for 125 or 99 years; every year that passes takes one off, and at some point the number gets small enough that a lender stops treating the flat as a safe asset. There is no single legal cut-off, but there are lines everyone in the market watches. If you're searching for how to sell a flat with a short lease, or how to sell a flat with 60 or 70 years left, those lines are the reason it suddenly got hard.
Where the 80-year line comes from
Below 80 years, the price of extending a lease through the statutory route rises, because the freeholder is entitled to a share of the increase in value the extension creates. That share is called marriage value, and it only applies once the lease is under 80 years. Valuers and lenders both use 80 as the line, and many lenders want 85 or more at the point the buyer's mortgage starts, so a flat that was fine to sell at 90 years can be difficult at 78. It's worth checking the current position on marriage value, because the rules are being reformed. The 80-year line still shapes the market today.
Why lenders make it hard and cash makes it easy
A mortgage lender is lending against the flat for 25 years or more, and wants a lease that outlives the loan by a wide margin. If the lease is too short, or has a doubling ground rent, or the freeholder's information pack hasn't arrived, the mortgage is refused or the valuation drops, and the sale fails after months of waiting. A cash buyer for a short lease flat isn't borrowing against it, so none of that applies: we can take a 55-year lease, an escalating ground rent and a block with no active freeholder, and still complete in a fortnight.
What it's worth
Honestly: less than the same flat with a long lease. We're buying a flat whose lease needs extending, and taking on the premium, the fees, the time and the risk that the freeholder makes it hard. Our offers on short lease flats usually land at around 60–80% of the long-lease value, depending on the years left, with every fee paid by us. Against that, extending first costs a premium and fees up front, takes many months, and still leaves a one-in-four chance the buyer's lender backs out — which is why the net figures in the comparator at the top of this page are closer than the headline percentages suggest. If you'd like to see the same maths for your own flat, ask for a figure; it takes a minute and costs nothing.
What if you'd rather extend first?
That's a legitimate choice, and sometimes the better one. Since the 2024 Act came into force, the statutory route lets a leaseholder extend by 990 years with the ground rent reduced to zero, and there's no longer a two-year ownership requirement. If you have the cash, a freeholder who answers and the patience to wait six to twelve months, extending first and selling through an agent can leave you with more, and we'll say so. Where it goes wrong is when the premium comes back higher than expected, the freeholder is absent or slow, or you need to move before the extension completes. That's when selling as it stands makes sense.
If the freeholder is missing, or the building has bigger problems
Flats come with other things attached: an absent or unresponsive freeholder, service charge disputes, major works, a doubling ground rent, a block with cladding or fire-safety questions. They can make a flat very hard to sell on the open market, and we buy them too. The figure reflects it, and we take on the work. It's a different conversation from a well-run block with a responsive managing agent, and we'll have it straight. Tell us what's going on when you ask for the offer; it changes what we pay, not whether we buy.