Having had my offer accepted I require leasehold conveyancing in South Hackney. Before I get started I would like to find out the number of years remaining on the lease.

If the lease is recorded at the land registry - and most are in South Hackney - then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties. From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer and lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title.For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.

I have recently realised that I have 62 years left on my lease in South Hackney. I now wish to get lease extension but my freeholder is missing. 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 granted an extra 90 years by the Court. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to find the lessor. In some cases an enquiry agent should be helpful to conduct investigations and to produce an expert document which can be used as evidence that the freeholder can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a solicitor both on proving the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court overseeing South Hackney.

I am attracted to a two flats in South Hackney both have about forty five years unexpired on the lease term. Should I regard a short lease as a deal breaker?

There are plenty of short leases in South Hackney. The lease is a right to use the premises for a prescribed time frame. As the lease shortens the marketability of the lease decreases and results in it becoming more costly to acquire a lease extension. For this reason it is advisable to extend the lease term. Sometimes it is difficult to sell a property with a short lease because mortgage companies less inclined to grant a loan on properties of this type. Lease extension can be a protracted process. We recommend you seek professional help from a conveyancer and surveyor with experience in this arena

All being well we will complete the sale of our £400000 apartment in South Hackney in just under a week. The management company has quoted £372 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and 3 years statements of service charge. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in South Hackney?

South Hackney conveyancing on leasehold maisonettes nine out of ten times necessitates administration charges invoiced by management companies :

• Addressing pre-contract questions
• Where consent is required before sale in South Hackney
• 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 conveyancer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for South Hackney leasehold premises is £350. For South Hackney 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 provide the information.

Following months of dialogue we simply can't agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in South Hackney. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?

Most definitely. We can put you in touch with a South Hackney conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement case for a South Hackney property is 150 Amhurst Road in December 2013. The tribunal concluded that the premium to be paid by the applicant for the enfranchisement of the subject property was £43,500. This case related to 4 flats. The unexpired term was 90 (or thereabouts).

When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in South Hackney what are the most frequent lease defects?

Leasehold conveyancing in South Hackney is not unique. All leases are unique and legal mistakes in the legal wording can result in certain provisions are missing. 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
• A provision for the recovery of money spent for the benefit of another party.
• Service charge per centages that don't add up correctly leaving a shortfall

A defective lease will likely cause problems when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Barclays , Chelsea Building Society, and Alliance & Leicester all have express conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is problematic they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the purchaser to pull out.