How to check how many years are left on a lease

Every lease carries two numbers that decide everything else, the date the term runs from and the length it was granted for, for example 125 years from 1 January 2005. Once you have both, the years left is simple arithmetic. There are three places to find them, from the quickest to the most reliable.

1. 1The listing and the agent. Many listings state the years left or the original term, and the agent can ask the seller for the lease or for the TA7 leasehold information form their solicitor completes. It costs nothing, but it is the least reliable source, so get the figures in writing.
2. 2HM Land Registry, for £7. Search the address on the gov.uk property search. The free summary tells you whether the flat is leasehold and gives its title number. The £7 title register then describes the lease near the top, in the property register, usually with its date, its length and who granted it.
3. 3The lease itself. It is the document your solicitor will read in full. If it is filed with the title you can download a copy from HM Land Registry for £7 as well, or ask the seller's solicitor for one before you offer.

If the register does not state the term, the lease is where it is written. Your conveyancer confirms the figure later either way, but checking it yourself first means you know before you fall for the flat.

Treat it as a starting point, not the answer. Listings sometimes quote the original term rather than the years left, or a figure worked out when the flat first went on the market that nobody has updated since. A flat sold on a 99 year lease in 1985 has around 58 years left in 2026, not 99.

So ask for the start date and the length in writing and check the sum yourself, or confirm it on the £7 register. If an agent will only say "it's a long lease", that is a reason to dig, not to relax.

Most UK flats are leasehold. You own the flat for a fixed number of years, while a freeholder owns the building and the land. That single number, the years left on the lease, can swing a flat's value by tens of thousands of pounds and decide whether a mortgage lender will touch it at all.

It is also easy to skim past. A listing says "long lease", a buyer hears "fine", and nobody checks the real figure until the solicitor raises it weeks later, after the survey and search fees are spent. A short lease found early is a negotiating lever. Found late, it is a nasty surprise.

These are the same bands the calculator uses. They are a guide to reading the situation, not legal advice, and your lender and solicitor set the real lines.

Long lease, 125 years or more

Extending is not pressing, and lenders are generally relaxed. Share of freehold and 990 or 999 year leases sit at the top.

Healthy, 90 to 125 years

Fine for most buyers and lenders today, but the clock is running, so note the year it reaches 80.

Close to 80, 80 to 90 years

Time sensitive. Extending before the lease drops under 80 has been much cheaper, and a lease in the low 80s can cross the line while you own it.

Under 80 years

Extending now includes marriage value under the current rules, which can add thousands or tens of thousands of pounds, and many lenders get more cautious.

Short lease, under 70 years

Many lenders will not lend at this length, so most buyers need an extension first, and the price should reflect it.

Lenders care about the years left twice, when you borrow and when the mortgage ends. Many want somewhere around 70 to 85 years left when you apply, and 30 to 40 years still left when the last payment is made. A 25 year mortgage on a flat with 85 years left ends with 60 to spare, which is comfortable. The same mortgage on a flat with 62 years left ends with 37, which some lenders accept and others do not.

Each lender publishes its own figure in the UK Finance Lenders' Handbook, and a mortgage broker can check it for the lenders you are considering. The calculator above shows the years left at the end of a 25, 30 or 35 year mortgage, so you can see the question coming before you offer.

Ground rent is a charge you pay the freeholder simply for holding the lease, separate from the service charge. Two things matter. The amount, and how it rises.

For most new long residential leases granted from mid-2022 onward, ground rent must be a token amount, a peppercorn, under the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022. So a genuinely recent lease should carry little or no ground rent. Older leases are different. They can carry meaningful ground rent, and some contain doubling or RPI-linked clauses that escalate over time. A clause that doubles the ground rent every 10 or 15 years can make a flat hard to mortgage and hard to sell.

Find the ground rent figure and the review clause in the lease itself, not just the listing. Read how often it rises and by how much. A flat amount that stays flat is the easy case. A rising or doubling clause is something to raise with your solicitor before you offer.

If a lease is short, you will likely want to extend it, and the cost belongs in your offer. The premium for a statutory extension depends mainly on the years left, the ground rent and the flat's value, and it rises as the lease gets shorter.

Under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, once a lease has fewer than 80 years left an extra cost called marriage value becomes payable, which is why extending before the 80 year mark has traditionally been much cheaper. A flat at 82 years sits inside the cheaper zone today, but if you hold it for a few years the lease slips under 80 and the bill can jump.

The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 includes abolishing marriage value, but at the time of writing, September 2026, that part is not in force and has no start date. Until it starts, the 80 year line still applies to any extension you make. Confirm the current position, and get a figure, from a solicitor or a specialist valuer before you rely on it. Online extension calculators are a rough indication only.

Doing all of this by hand is the right instinct, and it takes time. Flatscope is research software that does the first pass for you. Paste a Rightmove or Zoopla listing link and it reads the listing and pulls from public records to produce a sourced report, with every figure cited to where it came from.

The lease sits on its own axis. Flatscope scores it from 0 to 20 on a Lease axis, with a freehold or virtual freehold scoring at the top, longer leases scoring high, and short leases scoring low, and it flags anything near or under 80 years as a time-sensitive thing to ask about. It also reads ground rent and service charge into a Costs view, looks up the EPC, checks for building safety signals, and rolls everything into a headline score and a plain verdict that runs from Strong buy down to Skip. The point is to see the lease position before you fall for the flat.

Honest framing. Flatscope screens, it does not confirm. It distils public records and published guidance into a fast first read. It is not a solicitor, it does not give legal advice, and no professional reviews your individual report. It does not replace the full lease review your conveyancer does once you offer. Use it to decide which flats are worth your solicitor's time, and what to negotiate.

Asking these in writing, by email or message, gives you a record and tends to produce more careful answers than a question on a viewing.

1. What is the exact lease start date and original term, so I can confirm the years remaining.

2. What is the current ground rent, and does it rise or double, and on what schedule.

3. What is the current annual service charge, and has it changed much in the last few years.

4. Are there any known major works planned or recent Section 20 consultations. Section 20 is the formal process a landlord must run before charging leaseholders more than £250 each for works, or more than £100 a year each under a long-term agreement.

5. Has the seller already started or been quoted for a lease extension.

Vague or evasive answers are themselves information. A seller who cannot tell you the lease start date is a reason to dig harder, not to assume the best.

A desk check using public records and the lease document gets you a long way. It tells you the years remaining, the ground rent and how it rises, roughly where the lease sits on the clock, and whether the 80 year question is in play. That is usually enough to decide whether a flat is worth offering on, and to price the lease into your offer.

What it cannot do is replace a full legal review. Your solicitor reads the whole lease, checks exactly what your flat includes, known as the demise, confirms the title and any restrictions, reviews the service charge accounts and any forfeiture risk, raises enquiries with the freeholder, considers any building safety obligations under the Building Safety Act 2022 where they apply, and confirms the current extension position under a law that is mid-reform. Those steps need the full pack and professional judgement.

The sensible order is simple. Screen first so you only spend money on the flats that survive the lease check, then let your conveyancer confirm the detail on the one you offer on.