If you have a mortgage, your mortgage provider will almost certainly need to be involved and they will want to have a solicitor representing them. So I would recommend using a solicitor who is on the panel of solicitors used by the mortgage provider (otherwise you will end up paying two lots of mortgage fees).
If you're unhappy with the price being asked by Hounslow, you may also need to instruct a surveyor (use a RICS one) to provide a competing valuation - but check how much that will cost you against how much you'll knock off the asking price. The main element of the cost is likely to be 50% of the "marriage value" (i.e. the difference in value between your property with a lease of 75 years (or whatever it is) and a lease of 999 years (or whatever it's extended to); that "marriage value" is split 50/50 between you and the landlord. If yours is a property similar to many others, which have had leases extended, then there will be lots of comparables and so there may not be much to argue about. The other element that will be a factor is the interest rate used in the calculations - the lower the interest rate used, the higher the price. So you should look at that and challenge it if necessary |