Last month I purchased a leasehold property in Heath. Do I have any liability for service charges for periods before my ownership?

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. 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 reputable estate agency in Heath where we have experienced a few flat sales derailed as a result of short leases. I have been given contradictory information from local Heath conveyancing firms. Could you shed some light as to whether the owner of a flat can start the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

Provided that the seller has been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the buyer need not have to sit tight for 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed before, or simultaneously with completion of the sale.

Alternatively, it may be possible 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.

Can you offer any advice when it comes to choosing a Heath conveyancing firm to deal with our lease extension?

When appointing a solicitor for your lease extension (regardless if they are a Heath conveyancing practice) it is imperative that they be familiar with the legislation and specialises in this area of conveyancing. We recommend that you make enquires with two or three firms including non Heath conveyancing practices before you instructing a firm. Where the conveyancing practice is ALEP accredited then so much the better. Some following of questions might be helpful:

• How familiar is the practice with lease extension legislation?
• What volume of lease extensions has the firm conducted in Heath in the last twenty four months?

All being well we will complete our sale of a £ 350000 apartment in Heath in 8 days. The management company has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and previous years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in Heath?

Heath conveyancing on leasehold flats ordinarily results in fees being raised by freeholders :

• Addressing pre-exchange enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Heath
• Copies of the building insurance and schedule
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your lawyer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Heath leasehold property is £350. For Heath conveyancing transactions it is customary for the seller to pay for these costs. The landlord or their agents are under no legal obligation to answer such questions most will be willing to do so - albeit often at exorbitant prices where the fees bear little relation to the work involved. Unfortunately there is no law that requires fixed charges for administrative tasks. Neither is there any legal time frame by which they are required to supply answers.

What are the frequently found deficiencies that you encounter in leases for Heath properties?

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

• Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the property
• Insurance obligations
• Clauses dealing with recovering service charges for expenditure on the building or common parts.
• Service charge per centages that don't add up correctly leaving a shortfall

A defective lease will likely cause issues when trying to sell a property as they can affect a potential buyer’s ability to obtain a mortgage. Lloyds TSB Bank, Leeds Building Society, and Godiva Mortgages Ltd all have express requirements when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is problematic they may refuse to provide security, obliging the buyer to pull out.

Leasehold Conveyancing in Heath - A selection of Questions you should ask Prior to buying

It would be a good idea to discover if there is anything that is prohibited in the lease. For example plenty of leases prohibit pets being allowed in in a block in Heath. If you like the flatin Heath yet your cat is not allowed to move with you then you will be faced hard choice. You should be aware that where the lease has no more than eighty years it will have adverse implications on the value of the flat. Check with your lender that they are willing to to proceed given the lease term. A short lease means that you will almost definitely require a lease extension sooner rather than later and you need to have some idea of how much this will be. For most Heathlease extensions you would need to own the premises for two years in order to be eligible to extend the lease. Does the lease have in excess of 80 years remaining?