Nearly every apartment we sell — the Valley Drive conversions, the mews schemes, the mansion blocks — is leasehold. Most are healthy. The ones that cause pain cluster around four numbers, and all four are checkable before you offer.

1. Years left on the lease

Above 100 years, relax. Between 85 and 100, fine — but ask the price of extending anyway. Below 85, the lease is a depreciating asset and lenders start caring; below 80, extension costs climb and some lenders walk. The 2024 leasehold reforms made extensions longer (990 years) and removed marriage value from the calculation, which has softened the old 80-year cliff — but “needs a lease extension” is still a negotiation, so have it before exchange, not after.

2. Ground rent

New leases since June 2022 are peppercorn — effectively zero. On older leases, read the review clause: a fixed £50 is nothing; a rent that doubles every ten years is a lender problem and a resale problem, and we price it accordingly when we take such flats on. Anything above £250 outside London can technically create an assured tenancy, which lenders dislike — solicitors routinely require an indemnity or a deed of variation.

3. Service charge — and its history

Harrogate conversions typically run £900–£1,600 a year; lift-and-concierge blocks more. The single number matters less than the pattern: ask for three years of accounts and the reserve fund balance. A low charge with an empty reserve is not cheap — it is a roof bill that hasn’t arrived yet. Our listings state the current year’s charge, as the material information rules require.

4. The management

Who holds the freehold, and who answers the phone? A residents’ management company with an engaged committee (like several of the schemes we sell repeatedly) is worth real money against an absent freeholder with a slow agent. Read the last AGM minutes — twenty minutes that tells you more than any brochure.

The reassuring conclusion

None of this should put you off a flat you love. Every listing of ours carries lease length, ground rent and service charge up front, and on request we will share the management pack detail before you instruct a solicitor. The buyers who get burned are the ones who discover these four numbers at week six — not the ones who ask on the first viewing.