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@stevo_com
Just spoke to my Freeholder's solicitor about our lease extension. The background being after March this year will be the last full year above 80 years left on the lease. Once the lease drops below 80 years, it becomes exponentially more expensive to extend year on year. Statutory law affords the homeowner a guaranteed extension of 90 years with reasonable terms once you have owned the property for more than two years although you can start informal negotiations at any time without affecting your statutory rights.
I will have owned the flat for 2 years from this July so could serve statutory notice then. However, this route comes with more legal and surveying/valuation costs.
If the freeholder is willing to informally offer something reasonable and no worse than the terms I would likely get by going the statutory route, I will go ahead as it could mean a £4k saving.
But if they are dicks, I'll serve the statutory notice the day after the two year anniversary.
From speaking to their solicitor (I don't have contact details for the freeholder, our ground rent is paid to the solicitor as I think it is actually owned by the executors of the original freeholder's will), he seemed to suggest that they might be ok and even said unprompted that if they don't offer the full 90 years and decent terms, we will go the statutory route.
Here's hoping.
PS - before anyone suggests, I have looked into share of Freehold and with the other leaseholders, this would be an utter ball-ache an no cheaper considering I don't pay any service charges. This way I'll end up with a 170 year lease and not have to worry about any issues in that regard when I come to sell or re-mortgage. Not for another 90 years anyway.