Marriage Value

Last updated

Marriage value, also called synergistic value, is a concept in property valuation. It is defined by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors as "an additional element of value created by the combination of two or more assets or interests where the combined value is more than the sum of the separate values". [1]

In England and Wales, the term is most often encountered in leasehold enfranchisement where a valuation is undertaken with a view to extending a residential lease or purchasing the freehold of a residential property held on a ground lease. The issue arises as it had been common practice in England until June 2022 for flats  and occasionally houses to be sold on the basis that the purchaser obtains a lease usually of 99 years or longer at a modest rent described as a ground rent and pays close to a freehold price for doing so. The Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 which came into force on 30 June 2022 changed this practice by requiring almost all new residential leases to have a zero ground rent (often referred to as a "peppercorn"). .

A ground lease is a wasting asset to the leaseholder because the value of the property declines relative to its long lease value as the lease becomes shorter. In the absence of legislation allowing leaseholders to extend their lease the property would revert to the freeholder upon expiry of the lease at which point the value of the leaseholder's interest would be nil. Legislation provides that a qualifying leaseholder may extend their lease on payment of compensation to the freeholder. Part of that compensation is a proportion of the increase in value to the flat resulting from the lease extension. For example, a property may have a value of £300,000 if it has a 99 year lease but only be worth 85% of that value if the lease has only 70 years remaining. If the leaseholder with 70 years unexpired is entitled to extend the lease to 99 years or more, they have the opportunity to increase the value of their interest in the property by £45,000. This figure is the marriage value. Leasehold legislation in the UK recognises that this marriage value would result in a windfall to the lessee when the lease extends and therefore provides that this marriage value is split, generally on a 50/50 basis, between the freeholder and leaseholder - although there is specific provision in the legislation that if there is more than 80 years remaining on the lease at the time of application to extend, the leaseholder is not under an obligation to pay any marriage value to the freeholder.

Following the passing of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act in Parliament on 24 May 2024 the requirement upon leaseholders to pay marriage value to freeholders will be removed once a statutory instrument is introduced to give effect to the relevant provision within the Act, although no time frame is currently available for when this will occur. [2]

The term marriage value is likely a misnomer in residential lease extension as two interests are not being combined, rather one is being extended, but the term remains widely used in the valuation of leasehold property in the UK. There are other circumstances where marriage value may be applicable and the term synergistic value is more often used in those contexts.

Related Research Articles

In common law and statutory law, a life estate is the ownership of immovable property for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms, it is an estate in real property that ends at death, when the property rights may revert to the original owner or to another person. The owner of a life estate is called a "life tenant". The person who will take over the rights upon death is said to have a "remainder" interest and is known as a "remainderman".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Condominium</span> Form of ownership of real property

A condominium is an ownership regime in which a building is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual owners. These individual units are surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned and managed by the owners of the units. The term can be applied to the building or complex itself, and is sometimes applied to individual units. The term "condominium" is mostly used in the US and Canada, but similar arrangements are used in many other countries under different names.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lease</span> Contractual agreement in which an assets owner lets someone else use it in exchange for payment

A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user to pay the owner for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial or business equipment are also leased. Basically a lease agreement is a contract between two parties: the lessor and the lessee. The lessor is the legal owner of the asset, while the lessee obtains the right to use the asset in return for regular rental payments. The lessee also agrees to abide by various conditions regarding their use of the property or equipment. For example, a person leasing a car may agree to the condition that the car will only be used for personal use.

A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant has rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a leasehold estate is typically considered personal property.

Real estate appraisal, property valuation or land valuation is the process of developing an opinion of value for real property. Real estate transactions often require appraisals because they occur infrequently and every property is unique, unlike corporate stocks, which are traded daily and are identical. The location also plays a key role in valuation. However, since property cannot change location, it is often the upgrades or improvements to the home that can change its value. Appraisal reports form the basis for mortgage loans, settling estates and divorces, taxation, and so on. Sometimes an appraisal report is used to establish a sale price for a property.

As a legal term, ground rent specifically refers to regular payments made by a holder of a leasehold property to the freeholder or a superior leaseholder, as required under a lease. In this sense, a ground rent is created when a freehold piece of land is sold on a long lease or leases. The ground rent provides an income for the landowner. In economics, ground rent is a form of economic rent meaning all value accruing to titleholders as a result of the exclusive ownership of title privilege to location.

The Land Acts were a series of measures to deal with the question of tenancy contracts and peasant proprietorship of land in Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Five such acts were introduced by the government of the United Kingdom between 1870 and 1909. Further acts were introduced by the governments of the Irish Free State after 1922 and more acts were passed for Northern Ireland.

Forty-shilling freeholders were those who had the parliamentary franchise to vote by virtue of possessing freehold property, or lands held directly of the king, of an annual rent of at least forty shillings, clear of all charges.

A leasehold valuation tribunal (LVT) was a statutory tribunal in England which determined various types of landlord and tenant dispute involving residential property in the private sector. An LVT consisted of a panel of three; one with a background in property law ; one with a background in property valuation generally a qualified surveyor; and a layman, although some decisions of an LVT were decided by a single member. LVTs were non-departmental public bodies.

In English land law, a rentcharge is an annual sum paid by the owner of freehold land (terre-tenant) to the owner of the rentcharge (rentcharger), a person who need have no other legal interest in the land.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peppercorn (law)</span> Legal term

In legal parlance, a peppercorn is a metaphor for a very small cash payment or other nominal consideration, used to satisfy the requirements for the creation of a legal contract. It is featured in Chappell & Co Ltd v Nestle Co Ltd, which stated that "a peppercorn does not cease to be good consideration if it is established that the promisee does not like pepper and will throw away the corn". However, the cited passage is mere dicta, and not the basis for the decision.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freehold (law)</span> Legal term

A freehold, in common law jurisdictions such as England and Wales, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and twenty states in the United States, is the common mode of ownership of real property, or land, and all immovable structures attached to such land.

Building management is a discipline that comes under the umbrella of facility management. Hard services usually relate to physical, structural services such as fire alarm systems, lifts, and so on whereas soft services allude to cleaning, landscaping, security, and suchlike human-sourced services.

The history of rent control in England and Wales is a part of English land law concerning the development of rent regulation in England and Wales. Controlling the prices that landlords could make their tenants pay formed the main element of rent regulation, and was in place from 1915 until its abolition by the Housing Act 1988.

Compulsory purchase is the power to purchase rights over an estate in English land law, or to buy that estate outright, without the current owner's consent. In England and Wales, Parliament has granted several different kinds of compulsory purchase power, which are exercisable by various bodies in various situations. Such powers are meant to be used "for the public benefit". This expression is interpreted broadly.

Government rent in Hong Kong started on July 1, 1997, with the inception of the Joint Declaration. It said that new land grants contain a standard condition that the lessee is required to pay an annual rent, equal to 3% of the rateable value from time to time of the land leased.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leasehold Reform Act 1967</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Leasehold Reform Act 1967 is an act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, which concerns English land law and compulsory purchase. A government bill, the law remains largely intact. It was passed by both Houses and had been tabled by ministers of the Labour government, 1964–1970.

<i>James v United Kingdom</i>

James v United Kingdom [1986] is an English land law case, concerning tenants' (lessees') statutory right to enfranchise a home from their freeholder and whether specifically that right, leasehold enfranchisement, infringes the freeholder's human rights in property without being in a valid public interest.

In property valuation, a deferment rate is a discount rate applied to the current price of a property in order to assess the present value of the right to vacant possession of a residential property at the end of a leasehold to which the freehold is subject.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Land Transaction Tax</span>

Land Transaction Tax (LTT) is a property tax in Wales. It replaced the Stamp Duty Land Tax from 1 April 2018. It became the first Welsh tax in almost 800 years.

References