Top Five Questions relating to Wendover leasehold conveyancing
Having had my offer accepted I require leasehold conveyancing in Wendover. Before I get started I want to be sure as to the remaining lease term.
If the lease is recorded at the land registry - and almost all are in Wendover - 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.
Jane (my partner) and I may need to rent out our Wendover garden flat temporarily due to a new job. We used a Wendover conveyancing firm in 2004 but they have closed and we did not have the foresight to get any advice as to whether the lease allows us to sublet. How do we find out?
Notwithstanding that your last Wendover conveyancing lawyer is not 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 non-specific, subletting is allowed. Quite often there is a prerequisite that you are obliged to seek consent via your landlord or other appropriate person before subletting. The net result is you not allowed to sublet in the absence of prior consent. Such consent should not be unreasonably refused ore delayed. If your lease prohibits you from letting out the property you will need to ask your landlord if they are willing to waive this restriction.
There are only 62 years remaining on my lease in Wendover. I now wish to get lease extension but my freeholder is can not be found. What should I do?
On the basis that you meet the appropriate requirements, 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 mean that your lease can be extended by the Court. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you have done all that could be expected to track down the landlord. For most situations an enquiry agent should be useful to try and locate and to produce a report to be used as evidence that the landlord is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer in relation to proving the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court covering Wendover.
I own a leasehold house in Wendover. Conveyancing and The Royal Bank of Scotland mortgage went though with no issue. I have received a letter from someone claiming to own the freehold. It included a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1996. The conveyancing practitioner in Wendover who previously acted has now retired.Do I pay?
The first thing you should do is make enquiries of the Land Registry to make sure that the individual claiming to own the freehold is indeed the new freeholder. It is not necessary to instruct a Wendover conveyancing solicitor to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for £3. You should note that in any event, even if this is the legitimate landlord, under the Limitation Act 1980 no more than 6 years of rent can be collected.
I am a negotiator for a busy estate agency in Wendover where we see a number of flat sales derailed as a result of short leases. I have been given inconsistent advice from local Wendover conveyancing solicitors. Please can you shed some light as to whether the seller of a flat can commence 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 commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is 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.
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.
I am the registered owner of a 1 bedroom flat in Wendover, conveyancing having been completed 6 years ago. Can you let me have an estimate of the premium that my landlord can legally expect in return for granting a renewal of my lease? Equivalent properties in Wendover with a long lease are worth £194,000. The ground rent is £45 charged once a year. The lease terminates on 21st October 2077
With just 52 years left to run we estimate the price of your lease extension to span between £33,300 and £38,400 plus legals.
The suggested premium range that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to supply the actual costs without more comprehensive investigations. Do not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be additional concerns that need to be considered and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not take any other action based on this information before getting professional advice.
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