Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Seventy years left on my flat in Lanchester. I now want to get lease extension but my landlord is absent. What options are available to me?

On the basis that 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. However, you will be required to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have made all reasonable attempts to find the landlord. On the whole a specialist would be helpful to try and locate and prepare a report to be accepted by the court as evidence that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer both on proving the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Lanchester.

I've recently bought a leasehold flat in Lanchester. 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. 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 work for a long established estate agent office in Lanchester where we have witnessed a few leasehold sales jeopardised due to short leases. I have received conflicting advice from local Lanchester conveyancing firms. Could you confirm whether the owner of a flat can start the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

As long as the seller has owned the lease for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is 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 has to be done before, or simultaneously with 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.

Do you have any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Lanchester from the point of view of speeding up the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Lanchester can be bypassed if you appoint lawyers as soon as you market your property and ask them to collate the leasehold information needed by the purchasers’ solicitors.
• A minority of Lanchester leases require Landlord’s consent to the sale and approval of the buyers. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers put in hand financial (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 solicitors.

If there is a history of conflict with your landlord or managing agents it is essential that these are settled before the property is marketed. The buyers and their solicitors will be nervous about purchasing a property where a dispute is unresolved. You may have to bite the bullet and discharge any arrears of service charge or resolve the dispute prior to completion of the sale. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled prior to the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You are still duty bound to disclose details of the dispute to the buyers, but it is better to present the dispute as historic as opposed to unresolved.

If you hold a share in a the freehold, you should make sure that you hold the original share document. Obtaining a replacement share certificate can be a lengthy formality and slows down many a Lanchester home move. If a duplicate share is required, do contact the company officers or managing agents (where applicable) for this as soon as possible.

You believe that you know the number of years left on your lease but it would be wise to double-check via your solicitors. A buyer’s lawyer will not be happy to advise their client to proceed with the purchase of a leasehold property the remaining number of years is below 80 years. It is therefore important at an early stage that you consider whether the lease for your property needs extending. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your property on the market for sale.

If all goes to plan we aim to complete the sale of our £275000 flat in Lanchester next week. The freeholder has quoted £336 for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and previous years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in Lanchester?

Lanchester conveyancing on leasehold maisonettes ordinarily necessitates administration charges levied by landlords agents :

• Answering pre-exchange enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Lanchester
• Supplying insurance information
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your conveyancer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Lanchester leasehold property is £350. For Lanchester 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 obliged to provide the information.

Lanchester Leasehold Conveyancing - A selection of Questions you should ask before Purchasing

Is the freehold reversion owned collectively by the tenants? This information is helpful as a) areas may cause problems for the block as the common areas may start to deteriorate where services are not paid for b) if the tenants have a dispute with the managing agents you will want to know about it How much is the ground rent and service charge?

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Lanchester