For all enfranchisement claims, the valuation date (for calculating the premium) is now fixed, and will be the date when the T serves on L a claim to the freehold, or a claim to a lease extension. Needless to say, it will be in L’s interest to persuade T to serve that notice as late as possible (or perhaps attack the validity of the notice – so that T has to start again with a fresh notice).

The 80-year rule means that a lessee does not have to pay any marriage value (ie the notional profit) to L if the unexpired lease term is more than 80 years. Obviously, this means that the cost of enfranchisement increases dramatically the moment the unexpired term drops below 80 years.

Another significant change for Ts was the recent CA decision that an invalid notice by T can simply be replaced by a valid notice. This is particularly important with collective enfranchisement, where a T who withdraws a notice cannot serve a second notice until at least one year has expired. Thus, if T served a collective enfranchisement notice when the lease had 80 years and six months to run, but that notice was invalid (eg because it did not specify the required information), then L would argue that T would have to wait another year before serving a notice – by which time the lease would only have 79 years and six months to expire, with the result that the amount to be paid by T would have increased substantially. But, the CA has now held that an invalid first notice can be ignored, and thus a second, replacement, notice can be served straight away (without having to wait one year). See note on Sinclair Gardens v Poets Chase [2007] EWHC 1776 (Ch) in [2008] 202 Property Law Journal 5. © Practical Lawyer