Sell my flat fast — cash buyers for leasehold flats.
Short lease, cladding, doubling ground rent, service charge arrears or a tenant in place. We buy flats across England and Wales. Written offer in 24 hours, no fees, completion in as little as 7 days.
A flat is only as sellable as its building
With a house, a buyer's mortgage decision rests mostly on the house. With a flat it rests on the lease, the freeholder, the block's construction, its fire safety status and its service charge history — none of which you control. That is why flats that look perfectly saleable on a portal sit unsold for a year, and why chains involving flats collapse so often at the survey and legal stage.
We buy with our own funds and trusted funding partners. No lender has to approve the lease term, no valuer has to sign off the cladding, and nothing found in the management pack becomes a reason to reduce the figure after you have accepted it.
The problems that stop flats selling
Short lease
Under roughly 80 years and the cost of extending jumps, because marriage value becomes payable to the freeholder. Lenders start declining well before that. Buyers who do proceed often use the lease as leverage to renegotiate weeks into the process. We price the lease in at the start and do not revisit it.
Cladding and building safety
Blocks awaiting remediation, or holding an EWS1 rated B1 or B2, sit outside most lenders' criteria. Owners have been stuck for years in buildings they cannot sell and cannot afford to wait out. We buy them in their current state.
Escalating ground rent
Ground rents that double at fixed intervals, or exceed 0.1% of the property value, breach the criteria of most major lenders. The 2022 Act did not fix existing leases, so a flat sold in 2012 with a doubling clause is still affected today.
High service charges and major works
A Section 20 notice for major works landing mid-sale will frighten off a private buyer and can derail an agreed price. We take the bill into account openly rather than pulling out over it.
Ex-council and non-standard blocks
Large-panel-system construction, deck access, blocks over a certain height and low private ownership ratios all narrow the lender pool sharply. These flats can be perfectly good homes and still be unmortgageable.
Tenanted flats and landlord exits
Selling with a tenant in place removes almost every owner-occupier buyer. We buy with the occupier in situ, so there is no notice period to sit through and no void while the flat sits empty.
Unresponsive freeholder or managing agent
A management pack that takes three months to arrive has killed plenty of otherwise straightforward sales. We are used to chasing them, and because there is no chain behind us, the delay costs you nothing but time.
Studio and small-footprint flats
Flats under about 30 square metres are declined by many lenders on size alone. Cash purchase removes that barrier entirely.
What to have ready
Leasehold sales move at the speed of paperwork. If you can find these before you start, you will cut weeks off the process: a copy of the lease showing the start date and term, your most recent service charge and ground rent demands, any Section 20 notices for major works, and anything the building owner has issued about fire safety or remediation. If you do not have them, we can proceed anyway — it just takes longer to request them.
Where we buy flats
Across England and Wales — including Cardiff Bay and Swansea's SA1 waterfront blocks, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield and Nottingham city-centre developments, and ex-local-authority blocks everywhere in between.
Quick answers — selling a flat fast
- Why are flats harder to sell than houses?
- Because a flat's saleability depends on the building as well as the property. Lease length, cladding and building safety status, ground rent terms, service charge levels and the freeholder's paperwork all affect whether a buyer can get a mortgage. Any one of them can stop a sale that would otherwise complete.
- Can you sell a flat with a lease under 80 years?
- Yes, but usually only to a cash buyer or an investor. Most mainstream lenders require a lease term of around 70 years remaining at the end of the mortgage, which rules out most short-lease flats for ordinary buyers. A cash purchase does not depend on a lender's criteria.
- How fast can you sell a flat for cash in the UK?
- Typically 7 to 28 days from accepting a written offer. Leasehold conveyancing requires a management information pack from the freeholder or managing agent, and that pack, rather than the buyer, usually sets the timetable.
Frequently asked questions
Will you buy a flat with a short lease?
Yes. Once a lease drops below about 80 years, the marriage value provision in the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 makes an extension considerably more expensive, and most lenders stop offering mortgages well before the lease runs out. That combination is what makes short-lease flats so hard to sell on the open market. We buy without a mortgage, so the remaining term affects the figure rather than whether the purchase completes.
Can you buy a flat affected by cladding or waiting on an EWS1 form?
Yes. Buildings still in the remediation queue, or with an EWS1 rated B2, are effectively frozen for anyone needing a mortgage. We buy them subject to standard legal checks. Bring whatever documentation you have — the building's remediation status, any EWS1 already issued, and correspondence about costs — as it speeds the legal stage up considerably.
What about doubling ground rent?
Leases where the ground rent doubles every 10 or 15 years were widely sold in the 2000s and 2010s and are refused by most lenders. The Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 only removed ground rent on new leases, so existing ones are unchanged. We buy these as they are.
Do you buy ex-council and high-rise flats?
Yes. Many lenders decline ex-local-authority flats above a certain storey, in blocks with deck access, or where the private ownership ratio in the block is low. None of those are obstacles for a cash purchase.
I owe service charge arrears. Is that a problem?
No. Arrears and major works bills are normally settled from the sale proceeds at completion, so you do not need to clear them first. Tell us the amount early and it gets factored in openly rather than appearing as a late deduction.
How long does selling a flat to you take?
Usually 7 to 28 days. Leasehold sales need a management pack from the freeholder or managing agent, and how quickly that arrives is normally the deciding factor. Requesting it the day you accept an offer is the single most useful thing you can do.
What will you offer?
Below open-market value — we say that plainly. We pay cash, cover the legal costs, charge no fees and do not reduce the figure at the last minute. The difference between our offer and an agent's asking price is what buys the speed and the certainty.
Send us the address and the lease length.
Written offer within 24 hours. Free, and no obligation.
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