Lease Agreement Merge For Free

The Land Registry have a discretionary power to amalgamate the Titles. To proceed, you will need to obtain an up to date copy of the Title Register to check the aforesaid conditions apply.

Freehold land is title held by an owner fully, free of any obligations to a superior title.Leasehold land is title held by an owner for the term specified in the lease. The leaseholder is granted the right to occupy the property (land or buildings, house or flat) for the term by the freeholder.

Merger occurs where both a leasehold estate in land and the reversionary estate come into the same ownership and are held in the same capacity. The lease is absorbed by the reversionary estate and consequently determined. Merger is to be distinguished from surrender.

The issue is that you cannot grant yourself a lease extension. Therefore, the freehold or the leasehold would need to be transferred into a different name before the lease extension can proceed.

If you are lucky enough to own a flat and a share of the freehold the good news is that the process of extending is relatively straightforward and the costs are fixed (and low). The first step is to agree this with the co-owners. You cannot usually act alone however extending the lease will benefit everyone.

A leasehold merger can occur where a tenant acquires the landlord's interest in the property (known as the reversion) and both interests are held in the same capacity. On merger the lease is absorbed by the reversionary estate and terminated.

If subsequent legal proceedings find in the freeholders favour, the leasehold title could be forfeit.However, if the client owns both the leasehold and freehold titles in same / different legal names, they could potentially manipulate the system to forfeit the lease, passing ownership to themselves as freeholder.