New relativity graph aims to give flat owners a ‘fairer deal’

A new relativity graph that provides leasehold flat owners with a  “fairer and more reliable” valuation for their lease extensions has been launched.

 

The LV2017 Relativity Graph is the first developed to better represent the perspective of flat owners rather than freeholders. Produced by Leasehold Valuers with a statistics specialist at the London School of Economics, the graph determines how much a leaseholder must pay to their freeholder to extend the lease on their flat. The leasehold enfranchisement valuation specialist believes the existing relativity graphs favour the interests of the freeholders at the expense of leaseholders.

 

Steve Jones, director of valuation at Leasehold Valuers, said: “Relativity graphs have been accepted for many years as a justifiable means of calculating relativity.

 

However, it is widely acknowledged that a high degree of scepticism and subjectivity surrounds these graphs, not least because many of them use data from the Prime Central London market, which is not suitable to be used for a Greater London demographic. Also, most of the graphs pre-date the property market crash of 2007/8, and are therefore

said to be out of date.  

 

“The vast majority of relativity graphs have been created by freeholders and the valuers that represent them; as such, they can favour the interests of freeholders at the expense of leaseholders.”

 

The graph was collated in conjunction with Anna Louise Schröder of the Department of Statistics at the LSE. A copy of the Leasehold Valuers LLP Relativity Graph 2017 is available to download at http://leasehold-valuers.com/relativity/