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

Get a Quote

Leasehold conveyancing in Babbacombe is more complex than freehold. Your home move will be smoother where you choose a lawyer with a wealth of experience of leasehold conveyancing in Babbacombe and across next step up in loc. The lawyers we recommend have been approved by your lender so use our search tool to check.

Top Five Questions relating to Babbacombe leasehold conveyancing

Looking forward to exchange soon on a leasehold property in Babbacombe. Conveyancing solicitors have said that they report fully within the next couple of days. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

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

  • The length of the lease term 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 total extent of the property. This will be the apartment itself but may include a loft or basement if applicable.
  • Setting out your legal entitlements in relation to common areas in the building.For example, does the lease include a right of way over a path or hallways?
  • Repair and maintenance of the flat
  • Changes to the flat (alterations and additions)
  • I don't know whether the lease allows me to alter or improve anything in the flat - you should know whether it applies to all alterations or just structural alteration, and whether consent is required
  • Responsibility for repairing the window frames For details of the information to be contained in your report on your leasehold property in Babbacombe please ask your conveyancer in ahead of your conveyancing in Babbacombe

    • Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my basement flat in Babbacombe.Conveyancing has not commenced but I have just had a yearly maintenance charge invoice – what should I do?

    It best that you discharge 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 work for a busy estate agency in Babbacombe where we have experienced a few leasehold sales put at risk as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received contradictory information from local Babbacombe conveyancing solicitors. Could you shed some light as to whether the vendor of a flat can instigate 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 start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the buyer need not have to sit tight for 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed 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.

    Do you have any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Babbacombe from the point of view of saving time on the sale process?

    • A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Babbacombe can be reduced where you get in touch lawyers as soon as you market your property and ask them to collate the leasehold documentation needed by the purchasers’ conveyancers.
    • Some Babbacombe leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this is the case, it would be prudent to notify your estate agents 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 actual amount of the service charge so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their solicitors.
  • If there is a history of conflict with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are resolved before the property is put on the market. The buyers and their solicitors will be nervous about purchasing a property where there is a current dispute. You may need to swallow your pride and 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 are still duty bound to disclose particulars of the dispute to the buyers, but it is clearly preferable to reveal the dispute as historic as opposed to unresolved.
  • If you hold a share in a the Management Company, you should make sure that you have the original share certificate. Organising a duplicate share certificate can be a time consuming process and frustrates many a Babbacombe home move. Where a new share is needed, do contact the company officers or managing agents (where relevant) for this as soon as possible.
  • You believe that you know the number of years remaining on your lease but you should verify this via your solicitors. A buyer’s conveyancer will be unlikely to recommend their client to where the lease term is less than 75 years. It is therefore essential at an early stage that you consider whether the lease for your property needs extending. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your premises on the market for sale.

    • Are there frequently found defects that you encounter in leases for Babbacombe properties?

    There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Babbacombe. All leases are unique and drafting errors can result in certain clauses are erroneous. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

    • A provision to repair to or maintain parts of the building
    • Insurance obligations
    • Clauses dealing with recovering service charges for expenditure on the building or common parts.
    • Maintenance charge proportions which don’t add up to the correct percentage

    You will have a problem when selling your property if you have a defective lease primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Birmingham Midshires, Barnsley 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 defective they may refuse to grant the mortgage, forcing the purchaser to withdraw.

    Babbacombe Leasehold Conveyancing - Sample of Queries before buying

      Does the lease include onerous restrictions? The majority of Babbacombe leasehold properties will be liable to pay a service charge for the upkeep of the block set by the management company. Where you buy the flat you will have to meet this liability, normally quarterly accross the year. This may differ from a couple of hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for blocks with lifts and large common areas. In all likelihood there will be a ground rent for you to pay yearly, ordinarily this is not a large amount, say about £25-£75 but you should to enquire as sometimes it could be many hundreds of pounds. On the whole the outlay for major works tend not to be included within maintenance charges, although there some managing agents in Babbacombe ask leaseholders to contribute towards a reserve fund created for the specific intention of establishing a fund for major repairs or maintenance.

    Other Topics

    Lease Extensions in Babbacombe