There are only 72 years unexpired on my lease in Longford. I now wish to get lease extension but my landlord is absent. What should I do?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be lengthened by the Court. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have made all reasonable attempts to locate the lessor. In some cases a specialist may be useful to carry out a search and prepare a report to be accepted by the court as proof that the landlord can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer both on devolving into the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court overseeing Longford.

You should [be sent a copy of the lease|receive a copy of the lease]

Due to sign contracts shortly on a garden flat in Longford. Conveyancing solicitors have said that they will have a report out to me next week. What should I be looking out for?

The report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Longford should include some of the following:

• How long the lease is You should be advised as what happens when the lease ends, and informed of the importance of not letting the lease term falling below eighty years
• The physical extent of the premises. This will be the flat itself but may incorporate a roof space or basement if applicable.
• Does the lease require carpeting throughout thus preventing wood flooring?
• Does the lease prevent you from subletting the property, or working from home
• Ground rent - how much and when you need to pay, and also know whether this is subject to change
• Whether the landlord has obligations to ensure rights of quiet enjoyment over your property and do you know what it means in practice?
• The landlord’s obligations to repair and maintain the building. It is important that you know who is responsible for the repair and maintenance of every part of the building

For a comprehensive list of information to be contained in your report on your leasehold property in Longford please ask your conveyancer in advance of your conveyancing in Longford

Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my ground floor apartment in Longford.Conveyancing solicitors are to be appointed soon but I have just received a yearly service charge invoice – Do I pay up?

Your conveyancing lawyer is likely to suggest that you should pay the service charge 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 managing agents will not acknowledge the buyer until 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 employed by a busy estate agent office in Longford where we see a number of leasehold sales put at risk due to short leases. I have been given conflicting advice from local Longford conveyancing firms. Please can you clarify whether the seller of a flat can commence the lease extension process for the buyer?

As long as 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. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser can avoid having to wait 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed before, or simultaneously with completion of the sale.

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.

Completion in due on the disposal of our £ 475000 flat in Longford in 5 days. The freeholder has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and 3 years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in Longford?

For most leasehold sales in Longford conveyancing will involve, questions about the management of a building inevitably needing to be answered directly by the freeholder or its agent, this includes :

• Addressing conveyancing due diligence enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Longford
• Supplying insurance information
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your solicitor will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Longford leasehold premises is £350. For Longford 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 the information.

I own a ground-floor 1960’s flat in Longford. In the absence of agreement between myself and the landlord, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal determine the premium payable for a lease extension?

if there is a missing landlord or where there is disagreement about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant statutes it is possible to make an application to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal to calculate the price.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement matter before the tribunal for a Longford flat is 164 Nestles Avenue in October 2013. The tribunal agreed with the proposed price of £20,158 for the freehold and determined that that sum is the amount to be paid into court This case affected 2 flats. The remaining number of years on the lease was 69 years.

I bought a garden flat in Longford, conveyancing formalities finalised half a dozen years ago. How much will my lease extension cost? Comparable flats in Longford with over 90 years remaining are worth £190,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £55 levied per year. The lease comes to an end on 21st October 2080

With just 54 years unexpired we estimate the premium for your lease extension to span between £32,300 and £37,400 plus costs.

The figure that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs without more detailed investigations. Do not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt other issues that need to be considered and you obviously want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not move forward placing reliance on this information before getting professional advice.