Leasehold

The lease has fewer than 80 years left and the survey's worst note is a rating 2. Which of those two is the survey, and which is the lease length GOV.UK warns about?

The rating 2 is the survey's worst condition note. The lease length is the lease, and GOV.UK warns that extending a shared-ownership lease can be much more expensive below 80 years. Those are different facts. The survey rates what it saw. It does not count the years left, and it does not price an extension. The solicitor reads the unexpired term from the lease. A rating 2 is not a comment on the term, and the term is not a condition rating. Do not fold one into the other.

Last reviewed 24 October 2026. Written for buyers in England and Wales unless this answer says otherwise. No named surveyor has signed this page. It is general guidance, not a report on your house, and not legal advice.

What is the fuller explanation?

A condition note labelled rating 2 is about the building element the surveyor was describing. It says nothing about how many years the lease still has. The term is counted from the lease dates. GOV.UK warns that extending a shared-ownership lease can be much more expensive below 80 years. That warning is about the extension, not about the severity of a crack or a damp patch. Repairing the rating 2 item would not add years to the lease. Extending the lease would not, by itself, mend the item.

The solicitor should confirm the unexpired term and explain the extension route for this shared-ownership lease, without anyone inventing a marriage-value sum the papers do not show. The survey stays with the rating 2 element: what it is, and what repair it implies. A lender may look at both. They are still two inputs. Do not tell the lender the rating 2 is minor so the term does not matter, or that the term is short so the rating 2 must be urgent. Neither follows.

What should you ask your surveyor?

Which finding is the rating 2, as distinct from the lease term?
Did you count the years left, or leave the term to the lease?
Have you avoided pricing any lease extension?

What are the typical next steps?

Keep the rating 2 with the building element it describes.
Ask the solicitor to confirm the unexpired term.
Do not treat the term and the rating as one finding.

Costs vary with the building and with who you instruct. Where this page does not cite a published figure, ask the surveyor, a relevant specialist, or your solicitor for a written quote. Do not treat a forum average as the price.

Also asked about this

If the rating 2 item is later repaired, does the lease get longer?

No. Repairing a building element does not change the lease dates. GOV.UK's warning about cost below 80 years is about extending the term, not about the repair. It is untouched by mending whatever the survey marked as a rating 2.

Who reads the years left?

The solicitor, from the lease. The surveyor has reported a rating 2 on condition and has not calculated the term. Asking the survey to confirm the years would be asking it to do the solicitor's reading of the lease document.