Leasehold Conveyancing in Upminster Bridge - Get a Quote from the leasehold experts approved by your lender

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When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in Upminster Bridge, you will need to instruct a conveyancing practitioner with leasehold experience. Whether your mortgage company is to be Halifax, Birmingham Midshires or Nationwide make sure you find a lawyer on their panel. Find a Upminster Bridge conveyancing lawyer with our search tool

Sample questions relating to Upminster Bridge leasehold conveyancing

There are only 62 years left on my lease in Upminster Bridge. I need to extend my lease but my freeholder is can not be found. What are my options?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply 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 magistrate. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you have used your best endeavours to locate the freeholder. In some cases an enquiry agent may be useful to carry out a search and to produce an expert document to be used as evidence that the freeholder can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a solicitor in relation to devolving into the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Upminster Bridge.

Due to exchange soon on a garden flat in Upminster Bridge. Conveyancing lawyers have said 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 Upminster Bridge should include some of the following:

  • You should be sent a copy of the lease
  • Details of the parties to the lease, for example these could be the leaseholder (you), head lessor, landlord
  • Defining your rights in respect of common areas in the block.E.G., does the lease permit a right of way over an accessway or hallways?
  • Are you allowed to have a pet in the flat?
  • You must be told what counts as a Nuisance in the lease
  • Ground rent - how much and when you need to pay, and also know whether this is subject to change
  • An explanation as to the provision in the lease to pay service charges - with regard to both the building, and the more general rights a leaseholder has For a comprehensive list of information to be contained in your report on your leasehold property in Upminster Bridge please enquire of your solicitor in advance of your conveyancing in Upminster Bridge

    • I am a negotiator for a long established estate agency in Upminster Bridge where we see a number of flat sales put at risk due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given contradictory information from local Upminster Bridge conveyancing firms. Please can you clarify whether the vendor of a flat can start the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

    Provided that 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 need not have 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 at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.

    Alternatively, it may be possible 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 buyer.

    Do you have any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Upminster Bridge from the point of view of expediting the sale process?

    • Much of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Upminster Bridge can be bypassed if you get in touch lawyers the minute you market your property and request that they start to collate the leasehold documentation needed by the purchasers’ lawyers.
    • In the event that you altered the property did you need the Landlord’s consent? Have you, for example installed wooden flooring? Upminster Bridge leases often stipulate that internal structural changes or addition of wooden flooring necessitate a licence from the Landlord acquiescing to such alterations. If you fail to have the paperwork to hand you should not contact the landlord without contacting your conveyancer first.
  • A minority of Upminster Bridge 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 obtain financial (bank) and professional references. Any bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is able to meet 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 service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their lawyers.
  • If there is a history of conflict with your landlord or managing agents it is very important that these are settled prior to the flat being marketed. The purchasers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a flat where there is an ongoing dispute. You will have to accept that you will have to 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 will still have to reveal particulars of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is clearly preferable to reveal the dispute as historic rather than unsettled.
  • If you have the benefit of shareholding in the Management Company, you should ensure that you have the original share certificate. Arranging a replacement share certificate can be a lengthy process and frustrates many a Upminster Bridge home move. If a duplicate share is required, you should approach the company officers or managing agents (where applicable) for this sooner rather than later.

    • All being well we will complete our sale of a £175000 garden flat in Upminster Bridge in just under a week. The management company has quoted £336 for Certificate of Compliance, building insurance schedule and previous years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in Upminster Bridge?

    Upminster Bridge conveyancing on leasehold apartments usually involves the buyer’s solicitor sending questions for the landlord to address. Although the landlord is not legally bound to answer these enquiries the majority will be content to do so. They may invoice a reasonable administration fee for answering enquiries or supplying documentation. There is no set fee. The average fee for the information that you are referring to is over three hundred pounds, in some situations it exceeds £800. The management information fee required by the landlord must be sent together with a synopsis of rights and obligations in relation to administration fees, without which the invoice is not strictly payable. In reality one has no option but to pay whatever is requested of you if you want to complete the sale of your home.

    Having spent months of negotiations we cannot agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Upminster Bridge. Does the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal have jurisdiction to calculate the appropriate figures?

    Most definitely. We are happy to put you in touch with a Upminster Bridge conveyancing firm who can help.

    An example of a Lease Extension case for a Upminster Bridge flat is 37 Lodge Court High Street in November 2013. the decision of the LVT was that the premium to be paid for the new lease was £25,559 This case affected 1 flat. The remaining number of years on the lease was 57.5 years.

    Other Topics

    Lease Extensions in Upminster Bridge