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Buying or selling your lease

Find out more about buying or selling a lease and your responsibilities as a leaseholder.

Selling your lease

If you are a Westminster leaseholder and are only interested in selling your property back to the council then we will happily refer your interest to the relevant team at Westminster City Council. Please note that if you originally purchased your property directly from Westminster City Council under the Right To Buy Scheme then under the terms of your lease you may be required to offer ‘right of first refusal’ to Westminster City Council.

Westminster Council are actively purchasing suitable properties on the open market for use as affordable housing.

Once you accept an offer (subject to contract), you and the purchaser instruct your respective solicitors to deal with the sale or purchase.

Your solicitor will obtain proof of your ownership of the flat, which is usually a copy of your title from the Land Registry.

Following the receipt of this document, your solicitor will prepare a draft contract of sale and send to the purchasers’ solicitor, with a copy of your title, copy of the freeholder’s title and a copy of your lease.

The buyer’s solicitor will undertake searches and make enquiries about the flat. This will include your solicitor requesting an assignment pack from the leasehold operations team. We can only supply this pack to you, the seller, or your representatives.

To find out more about buying or selling your property please contact our Leasehold Operations team.

Call: 0800 358 3783 (freephone)

Email: housing.enquiries@westminster.gov.uk

Published: 8 January 2021

Last updated: 9 July 2025