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When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in Lanchester, you will need to chose a conveyancing lawyer with leasehold experience. Whether your mortgage company is to be Lloyds, Yorkshire Building Society or NatWest make sure you find a lawyer on their panel. Find a Lanchester conveyancing lawyer with our search tool

Lanchester leasehold conveyancing Example Support Desk Enquiries

There are only 62 years remaining on my flat in Lanchester. I now wish to extend my lease but my freeholder is can not be found. What options are available to me?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application to the County Court for for permission to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will mean that your lease can be lengthened by the Court. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to track down the freeholder. For most situations an enquiry agent would be helpful to conduct investigations and prepare an expert document to be used as proof that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a solicitor in relation to devolving into the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Lanchester.

I have just started marketing my ground floor apartment in Lanchester.Conveyancing lawyers have not yet been instructed but I have just had a quarterly service charge demand – Do I pay up?

It best that you pay the invoice as normal because all ground rent and service charges will be apportioned on completion, so you will be reimbursed by the buyer for the period running from after the completion date to the next payment date. Most management companies will not acknowledge the buyer unless the service charges have been paid and are up to date so it is important for both buyer and seller for the seller to show that they are up to date. Having a clear account will assist your cause and will leave you no worse off financially.

I am looking at a couple of maisonettes in Lanchester which have about 50 years unexpired on the leases. Should I regard a short lease as a deal breaker?

There are plenty of short leases in Lanchester. The lease is a right to use the property for a prescribed time frame. As the lease gets shorter the value of the lease deteriorate and it becomes more costly to extend the lease. For this reason it is generally wise to extend the lease term. More often than not it is difficulties arise selling premises with a short lease because mortgage companies may be reluctant to lend money on such properties. Lease enfranchisement can be a protracted process. We advise that you seek professional help from a conveyancer and surveyor with experience in this area

I am employed by a long established estate agency in Lanchester where we have experienced a number of flat sales derailed as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received inconsistent advice from local Lanchester conveyancing firms. Please can you confirm whether the vendor of a flat can start the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

As long as 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 proposed purchaser can avoid having to wait 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed prior to, or at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.

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 buyer.

Do you have any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Lanchester with the intention of expediting the sale process?

  • Much of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Lanchester can be bypassed if you instruct lawyers the minute you market your property and ask them to collate the leasehold information needed by the purchasers’ conveyancers.
  • Many freeholders or managing agents in Lanchester levy fees for supplying management packs for a leasehold premises. You or your lawyers should enquire as to the fee that they propose to charge. The management pack sought as soon as you have a buyer, thus accelerating the process. The average time it takes to obtain the necessary information is three weeks. It is the most usual reason for frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Lanchester.
  • Some Lanchester leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this applies to your lease, you should notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers obtain bank and professional references. The bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is financially capable of paying the annual service charge and the actual amount of the service charge should be quoted in the bank’s letter. You will therefore need to provide your estate agents with the actual amount of the service charge so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their lawyers.
  • If you have the benefit of shareholding in the Management Company, you should make sure that you are holding the original share document. Arranging a duplicate share certificate can be a lengthy formality and delays many a Lanchester home move. Where a duplicate share is required, do contact the company director and secretary or managing agents (where relevant) for this sooner rather than later.
  • You may think that you are aware of the number of years remaining on your lease but you should verify this via your solicitors. A purchaser's lawyer will be unlikely to recommend their client to where the lease term is less than 80 years. In the circumstances it is essential at an early stage that you consider whether the lease term requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your premises on the market for sale.

    • Leasehold Conveyancing in Lanchester - A selection of Questions you should consider before Purchasing

      How much is the ground rent and service charge? Are any of leasehold owners in arrears of their service charge liability? The prefered form of lease structure is a share of the freehold. In this arrangement the tenants enjoy control and notwithstanding that a managing agent is usually employed if it is larger than a house conversion, the managing agent employed by the leaseholders.

    Other Topics

    Lease Extensions in Lanchester