Lease Extension and Marriage Value?

Hi All, I was hoping for a bit of advice from the community RE. Lease Extensions, I’m a landlord with three properties in my portfolio.

Can I confirm that Marriage Value is added to the price of a lease extension when the lease falls *below* 80 years?

The reason I ask is I approached my freeholder at the beginning of March earlier in the year around extending my lease and numerous times since.

• The current lease is for 99 years from 1st January 2003
• The current lease will expire 1st January 2102
• Leaving 81 years 3 months currently unexpired

Initially, my freeholder was a little slow to reply, but with a little polite follow up I got some replies:

• End of April “You know the circumstances, we will get back as the things improve”
• Beginning of August “Please bear with me on lease extension, as we come out from COVID-19 ,will sort it out.”
• Latest “Thank you for your email, presently I am unable to give you time frame as our surveyor passed away due to COVID-19 and other are on furlough.”

Now I have no reason to believe there is any malice here, our relations have been pretty good.
Just a nagging thought, as I was hoping to have the lease extension sorted by now and 6 months have now passed since my first approach to extend.

In order to avoid the marriage value costs, I’d have to get the extension sorted before 31st Dec 2021?
i.e. I still have 15 months to sort it.

Any advice greatly received.

Chris

Editors Note: From the Leasehold Advisory Service >> https://www.lease-advice.org/lease-glossary/marriage-value/

Marriage value is the increase in the value of the property following the completion of the lease extension, reflecting the additional market value of the longer lease. In that this potential ‘profit’ only arises from the landlord’s obligation to grant the new lease, the legislation requires that it be shared equally between the parties.

The calculation of the marriage value, according to Schedule 13, is the difference between two aggregate amounts, which are:

1. the value of the leaseholder’s interest under the present lease
   plus the value of the landlord’s interest prior to the grant of the new lease
   plus the value of any intermediate interests
2. the value of the leaseholder’s interest with the new lease
   plus the value of the landlord’s interest once the new lease is granted
   plus the value of any intermediate interests (if remaining)

The legislation stipulates that where the unexpired term of the lease exceeds 80 years the marriage value shall be taken to be nil. In other words ,no marriage value is payable where the lease exceeds 80 years when the application to extend is served.

Taking the figures from the example, the calculation will be:

The marriage value is therefore £165,074 minus £156,600 = £8,474

Taking the 50:50 split between the landlord and the leaseholder, the leaseholder would have to pay half this figure – £4,237 – in addition to the reduction in the landlord’s interest.

In this example it can be seen that marriage value can considerably exceed the value of the landlord’s interest. Its calculation is dependent upon the estimated increase in value of the flat and, clearly, the lower that increase the lower will be the marriage value. This is an area where the input of a valuer with local knowledge is of paramount importance to both parties in order to provide substantive comparable evidence of the local market and how, if at all, flat values will be affected.

The longer the current lease the lower the latent marriage value may be, until eventually it becomes negligible.

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