Harry (my fiance) and I may need to rent out our Abridge 1st floor flat temporarily due to a career opportunity. We instructed a Abridge conveyancing practice in 2003 but they have closed and we did not have the foresight to get any advice as to whether the lease prohibits the subletting of the flat. How do we find out?

The lease dictates relations between the landlord and you the leaseholder; specifically, it will say if subletting is not allowed, or permitted but only subject to certain caveats. The accepted inference is that if the lease contains no expres ban or restriction, subletting is permitted. The majority of leases in Abridge do not contain strict prohibition on subletting – such a clause would undoubtedly devalue the property. In most cases there is a basic requirement that the owner notifies the freeholder, possibly supplying a copy of the tenancy agreement.

I am looking at a couple of apartments in Abridge which have approximately 50 years remaining on the lease term. Should I regard a short lease as a deal breaker?

There is no doubt about it. A leasehold apartment in Abridge is a deteriorating asset as a result of the shortening lease. The closer the lease gets to its expiry date, the more it adversely affects the salability of the property. The majority of purchasers and mortgage companies, leases with under eighty years become less and less attractive. On a more upbeat note, leaseholders can extend their leases by serving a Section 42 Notice. One stipulation is that they must have owned the property for two years (unlike a Section 13 notice for purchasing the freehold, when leaseholders can participate from day one of ownership). When successful, they will have the right to an extension of 90 years to the current term and ground rent is effectively reduced to zero. Before moving forward with a purchase of a residence with a short lease term remaining you should talk to a solicitor specialising in lease extensions and leasehold enfranchisement. We are are happy to put you in touch with Abridge conveyancing experts who will explain the options available to you during an initial telephone conversation free of charge. A more straightforward and quicker method of extending would be to contact your landlord directly and sound him out on the prospect of extending the lease You may find he or she is happy to negotiate informally and willing to consider your offer straight off, without having to involve anyone else. This will save you time and money and it could help you reach a lower price on the lease. You need to ensure that any new terms represent good long-term value compared with the standard benefits of the Section 42 Notice and that onerous clauses are not inserted into any redrafting of the lease.

I've recently bought a leasehold property in Abridge. Am I liable to pay service charges for periods before completion of my purchase?

Where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous lessee and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. Strange as it may seem, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. It is an essential part of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to be sure to have an up to date clear service charge receipt before completion of your purchase. If you have a mortgage this is likely to be a requirement of your lender.

If you purchase part way through an accounting year you may be liable for charges not yet demanded even if they relate to a period prior to your purchase. In such circumstances your conveyancer would normally arrange for the seller to set aside some money to cover their part of the period (usually called a service charge retention).

I work for a long established estate agency in Abridge where we see a number of flat sales derailed due to short leases. I have received inconsistent advice from local Abridge conveyancing solicitors. Please can you clarify whether the owner of a flat can instigate the lease extension process for the buyer?

Provided that the seller has owned the lease for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to kick-start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the buyer need not have to wait 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done before, or at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.

An alternative approach is to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord either before or after the sale. If you are informally negotiating there are no rules and so you cannot insist on the landlord agreeing to grant an extension or transferring the benefit of an agreement to the purchaser.

Completion in due on our sale of a £ 400000 flat in Abridge in just under a week. The managing agents has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and 3 years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge such fees for a leasehold conveyance in Abridge?

Abridge conveyancing on leasehold apartments often necessitates the buyer’s conveyancer sending questions for the landlord to answer. Although the landlord is not legally bound to address these enquiries most will be content to do so. They are entitled charge a reasonable administration fee for answering enquiries or supplying documentation. There is no upper cap for such fees. The average fee for the paperwork that you are referring to is over three hundred pounds, in some cases it exceeds £800. The administration charge demanded by the landlord must be sent together with a summary of entitlements and obligations in relation to administration charges, otherwise the charge is technically not due. Reality however dictates that you have no choice but to pay whatever is requested of you if you want to sell the property.

Following years of negotiations we are unable to agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Abridge. Does the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal have jurisdiction to calculate the appropriate figures?

if there is a missing landlord or where there is dispute about what the lease extension should cost, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 it is possible to make an application to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to determine the price payable.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement case for a Abridge property is 201 & 201a St. Barnabas Road in October 2013. The Tribunal decided that the price to be paid by the Applicants for the freehold interest is £20,071. This case was in relation to 2 flats. The unexpired term was 69.26 years.

I purchased a studio flat in Abridge, conveyancing formalities finalised 2012. Can you let me have an estimated range of the fair premium for a lease extension? Comparable flats in Abridge with a long lease are worth £195,000. The ground rent is £50 per annum. The lease comes to an end on 21st October 2095

With 69 years left to run we estimate the premium for your lease extension to range between £10,500 and £12,000 as well as plus your own and the landlord's "reasonable" professional fees.

The figure that we have given is a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we are not able to supply a more accurate figure in the absence of detailed due diligence. You should not use the figures in tribunal or court proceedings. There may be additional concerns that need to be taken into account and clearly you should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not move forward based on this information without first getting professional advice.