My husband and I may need to let out our Bacup garden flat temporarily due to taking a sabbatical. We instructed a Bacup conveyancing practice in 2002 but they have closed and we did not have the foresight to get any advice as to whether the lease permits subletting. How do we find out?

Notwithstanding that your previous Bacup conveyancing solicitor is not available you can check your lease to check if you are permitted to let out the property. The rule is that if the deeds are non-specific, subletting is allowed. There may be a precondition that you need to seek permission from your landlord or some other party prior to subletting. This means you not allowed to sublet without first obtaining permission. Such consent must not not be unreasonably withheld. If the lease does not allow you to sublet you will need to ask your landlord if they are willing to waive this restriction.

I have just started marketing my garden apartment in Bacup.Conveyancing is yet to be initiated but I have just had a yearly maintenance charge invoice – should I leave it to the buyer to sort out?

The sensible thing to do is clear the invoice 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 management companies will not acknowledge the buyer unless 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.

Back In 2000, I bought a leasehold house in Bacup. Conveyancing and Bank of Scotland mortgage are in place. A letter has just been received from someone claiming to own the freehold. It included a ground rent demand for rent dating back to 1992. The conveyancing solicitor in Bacup who acted for me is not around.Do I pay?

First make enquiries of the Land Registry to make sure that the individual claiming to own the freehold is indeed the new freeholder. There is no need to instruct a Bacup conveyancing practitioner to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for a few pound. Rest assured that in any event, even if this is the rightful landlord, under the Limitation Act 1980 no more than 6 years of rent can be collected.

I am a negotiator for a busy estate agent office in Bacup where we have experienced a number of flat sales derailed due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given contradictory information from local Bacup conveyancing solicitors. Can you shed some light as to whether the owner of a flat can start the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

As long as 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 for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done prior to, or at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.

Alternatively, it may be possible 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 buyer.

In relation to leasehold conveyancing in Bacup what are the most frequent lease problems?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Bacup. All leases is drafted differently and legal mistakes in the legal wording can sometimes mean that certain clauses are not included. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the premises
• 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

You may encounter difficulties when selling your property if you have a defective lease primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Accord Mortgages Ltd, The Mortgage Works, and Platform Home Loans Ltd 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 provide security, obliging the purchaser to pull out.

Leasehold Conveyancing in Bacup - Sample of Queries before buying

Where a Bacup lease has less than eighty years it will impact the marketability of the apartment. Check with your mortgage company that they are happy with the length of the lease. A short lease means that you will almost definitely have to extend the lease sooner rather than later and you need to have some idea of what this would cost. For most Bacuplease extensions you would be be obliged to have owned the residence for a couple of years before you are entitled to carry out a lease extension. In the main the cost for major works tend not to be included within maintenance charges, although there some managing agents in Bacup ask tenants to contribute towards a reserve fund and this is used to offset against larger works. Many Bacup leasehold properties will be liable to pay a service bill for the upkeep of the building levied by the management company. Should you acquire the apartment you will have to meet this liability, normally quarterly throughout the year. This could be anything from a few hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for bigger purpose-built buildings. There will also be a ground rent for you to pay yearly, ordinarily this is not a significant amount, say around £50-£100 but you should to check it because on occasion it can be many hundreds of pounds.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Bacup