I am tempted by the attractive purchase price for a couple of maisonettes in Maidenhead which have in the region of forty five years unexpired on the lease term. Do I need to be concerned?

A lease is a legal document that entitles you to use the property for a prescribed time frame. As a lease gets shorter the marketability of the lease reduces and results in it becoming more expensive to acquire a lease extension. For this reason it is often a good idea to increase the term of the lease. More often than not it is difficult to sell a property with a short lease because mortgage companies may be unwilling to lend money on properties of this type. Lease enfranchisement can be a protracted process. We advise that you seek professional help from a conveyancer and surveyor with experience in this arena

Last month I purchased a leasehold property in Maidenhead. Do I have any liability for service charges for periods before my ownership?

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).

Do you have any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Maidenhead from the point of view of expediting the sale process?

• Much of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Maidenhead can be reduced where you get in touch lawyers as soon as your agents start marketing the property and ask them to collate the leasehold documentation which will be required by the purchasers’ conveyancers.
• If you have carried out any alterations to the premises would they have required Landlord’s consent? Have you, for example laid down wooden flooring? Maidenhead leases often stipulate that internal structural changes or addition of wooden flooring require a licence issued by the Landlord consenting to such works. Should you dont have the approvals to hand do not communicate with the landlord without contacting your conveyancer in the first instance.
• A minority of Maidenhead leases require Landlord’s consent to the sale and approval of the buyers. If this is the case, you should 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 financially capable of paying the yearly 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 purchasers or their lawyers.
• If you have had any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is essential that these are settled prior to the flat being put on the market. The buyers and their solicitors will be nervous about purchasing a property 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 better to reveal the dispute as historic as opposed to unsettled.
• You may think that you are aware of the number of years remaining on your lease but it would be wise to verify this via your solicitors. A purchaser's conveyancer will be unlikely to recommend their client to to exchange contracts if the lease term is below 75 years. It is therefore essential at an as soon as possible that you identify whether the lease requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your home on the market for sale.

We expect to complete the disposal of our £ 300000 flat in Maidenhead next Thursday . The managing agents has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and 3 years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in Maidenhead?

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

• Answering pre-contract questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Maidenhead
• 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 Maidenhead leasehold premises is £350. For Maidenhead 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 answers.

What makes a Maidenhead lease unacceptable for security purposes?

Leasehold conveyancing in Maidenhead is not unique. Most leases are individual and legal mistakes in the legal wording can result in certain provisions are wrong. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:

• A provision to repair to or maintain elements of the building
• Insurance obligations
• Clauses dealing with recovering service charges for expenditure on the building or common parts.
• Service charge per centages that don't add up correctly leaving a shortfall

A defective lease can cause problems when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Yorkshire Building Society, Bank of Scotland, and Aldermore all have express conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is defective they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the purchaser to pull out.

Maidenhead Leasehold Conveyancing - A selection of Queries before buying

Is anyone aware of any major works in the planning that could increase the service costs?