Harry (my fiance) and I may need to rent out our Abbey Wood basement flat temporarily due to a career opportunity. We instructed a Abbey Wood conveyancing practice in 2001 but they have closed and we did not have the foresight to seek any guidance as to whether the lease allows us to sublet. How do we find out?

Even though your previous Abbey Wood conveyancing lawyer is no longer available you can check your lease to check if you are permitted to let out the premises. The accepted inference is that if the deeds are silent, subletting is allowed. Quite often there is a prerequisite that you need to obtain permission via your landlord or other appropriate person before subletting. The net result is that you cannot sublet in the absence of prior permission. Such consent is not allowed to be unreasonably turned down. If your lease prohibits you from letting out the property you should ask your landlord for their consent.

Expecting to complete next month on a ground floor flat in Abbey Wood. Conveyancing lawyers assured me that they report fully on Monday. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

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

• Details of the parties to the lease, for example these could be the leaseholder (you), head lessor, landlord
• The total extent of the property. This will be the flat itself but could also include a loft or basement if applicable.
• Does the lease prohibit wood flooring?
• Are pets allowed in the flat?
• You need to be told what counts as a Nuisance in the lease
• Changes to the flat (alterations and additions)

I am tempted by the attractive purchase price for a two maisonettes in Abbey Wood which have in the region of 50 years left on the lease term. Should I regard a short lease as a deal breaker?

There are no two ways about it. A leasehold flat in Abbey Wood is a deteriorating asset as a result of the reducing lease term. The closer the lease gets to its expiry date, the more it reduces the marketability of the property. For most buyers and banks, leases with under eighty years become less and less attractive. On a more positive 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 property 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 Abbey Wood conveyancing experts who will explain the options available to you during an initial telephone conversation free of charge. More often than not it is possible to negotiate informally with the freeholder to extend 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.

Last month I purchased a leasehold flat in Abbey Wood. 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. 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 a negotiator for a reputable estate agency in Abbey Wood where we see a number of leasehold sales jeopardised due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received inconsistent advice from local Abbey Wood conveyancing solicitors. Could you shed some light as to whether the owner of a flat can initiate the lease extension formalities for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

Provided that the seller has owned the lease 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. The benefit of this is that the buyer can avoid having to sit tight for 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed prior to, 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 buyer.

Following months of dialogue we cannot agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Abbey Wood. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?

Most certainly. We are happy to put you in touch with a Abbey Wood conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Lease Extension decision for a Abbey Wood flat is Various @ Colombus Square in January 2012. the Tribunal calculated the premiums to be paid for new leases for each of the flats in Mariners Walk to be £3822 and the premium to be paid for the new lease of 2 Knights Court to be £4439. This case affected 13 flats. The the unexpired term as at the valuation date was 76 years.

Abbey Wood Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - Examples of Questions you should consider before Purchasing

If a Abbey Wood lease has less than 80 years it will have adverse implications on the marketability of the property. It is worth checking with your lender that they are willing to to proceed given the lease term. A short lease means that you will almost definitely need a lease extension sooner rather than later and you need to have some idea of how much this will be. Remember, in most cases you will need to own the property for 24 months in order to be eligible to extend the lease. Who manages the building?