Due to exchange soon on a garden flat in Burnham. Conveyancing lawyers inform me that they report fully tomorrow. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

Your report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Burnham should include some of the following:

• You should be sent a copy of the lease

Last month I purchased a leasehold property in Burnham. Am I liable to pay service charges relating to a period prior to completion of my purchase?

Where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous owner and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. However, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. A critical element 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 am employed by a busy estate agency in Burnham where we have experienced a few flat sales jeopardised as a result of short leases. I have been given conflicting advice from local Burnham conveyancing solicitors. Could you shed some light as to whether the owner of a flat can commence the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

Provided that the seller has been the owner 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 proposed purchaser 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 prior to, or at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.

An alternative approach is to agree the lease extension with the freeholder 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.

What advice can you give us when it comes to appointing a Burnham conveyancing firm to deal with our lease extension?

If you are instructing a property lawyer for your lease extension (regardless if they are a Burnham conveyancing firm) it is most important that he or she should be familiar with the legislation and specialises in this area of work. We recommend that you talk with two or three firms including non Burnham conveyancing practices prior to instructing a firm. If the firm is ALEP accredited then so much the better. Some following of questions could be of use:

• If they are not ALEP accredited then what is the reason?

What makes a Burnham lease unmortgageable?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Burnham. Most leases are unique and drafting errors can result in certain clauses are missing. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the building
• Insurance obligations
• A provision for the recovery of money spent for the benefit of another party.
• Service charge per centages that don't add up correctly leaving a shortfall

You may have a problem when selling your property if you have a defective lease primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Lloyds TSB Bank, The Mortgage Works, and Aldermore all have express requirements when it comes to what is expected in a lease. Where a lender has been advised by their lawyers that the lease is problematic they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the buyer to pull out.

I inherited a 2 bed flat in Burnham, conveyancing having been completed 6 years ago. How much will my lease extension cost? Corresponding properties in Burnham with an extended lease are worth £236,000. The ground rent is £50 per annum. The lease runs out on 21st October 2081

You have 56 years unexpired we estimate the premium for your lease extension to range between £25,700 and £29,600 plus professional fees.

The figure that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs in the absence of detailed investigations. You should not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt additional issues that need to be taken into account and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you take any other action placing reliance on this information before getting professional advice.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Burnham