Extending your shared ownership lease
Cost of letting your lease drop below 80 years
When you extend a lease with 80 years or less remaining you may need to pay “marriage value”. Marriage value is the increase in your flat’s market value from extending a lease. By law you share the marriage value with the landlord.
It’s best to think about extending your lease when it gets to about 90 years, to avoid this extra cost.
Changes under leasehold reforms
Leasehold reforms proposed in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 will:
- make it cheaper to extend a lease that’s under 80 years by abolishing marriage value
- increase all lease extensions to 990 years
Under the reforms you and your landlord will need to pay your own legal and valuation costs (with certain limited exceptions). You will no longer need to pay your landlord’s costs.
The reforms are not yet in force.
Find out more: leasehold reforms
Deciding if you want to extend your lease
You may be better off waiting for the law to change before extending if:
- you have not staircased to 100%
- your lease has 80 years or less to run
You will benefit from the removal of marriage value and a cap on ground rent.
For some leaseholders it may be better to extend the lease now and not wait for the reforms – for example, if you need to sell in the next year or so, or if you have just over 80 to 82 years left on your lease.
- Last updated:
- 15 June 2026
- Next review:
- 15 June 2028
Related content
Use the lease length checker tool to find out how long is left on your lease and what it means
Your options to increase the share of the property you own (staircasing)
Advice guideHow to extend the lease of your flat, including getting started, your options and costs.
Topic - Lease extension