I am on look out for some leasehold conveyancing in Bargoed. Before I set the wheels in motion I require certainty as to the remaining lease term.

If the lease is recorded at the land registry - and 99.9% are in Bargoed - 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.

I only have Fifty years remaining on my flat in Bargoed. I now want to get lease extension but my landlord is can not be found. What options are available to me?

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 Court. You will be obliged to prove that you or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to find the lessor. On the whole a specialist may be useful to carry out a search and prepare an expert document which can be used as proof that the landlord is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a property lawyer both on investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court covering Bargoed.

My wife and I purchased a leasehold house in Bargoed. Conveyancing and Skipton Building Society mortgage organised. I have received a letter from someone saying they have taken over the freehold. It included a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1991. The conveyancing practitioner in Bargoed who acted for me is not around.Any advice?

The first thing you should do is contact HMLR to make sure that the individual purporting to own the freehold is indeed the new freeholder. There is no need to instruct a Bargoed conveyancing firm to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for less than a fiver. You should note that regardless, even if this is the rightful landlord, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

I am looking at a two flats in Bargoed which have about forty five years unexpired on the leases. should I be concerned?

There are plenty of short leases in Bargoed. The lease is a legal document that entitles you to use the property for a prescribed time frame. As a lease shortens the value of the lease deteriorate and it becomes more expensive to extend the lease. For this reason it is often a good idea to increase the term of the lease. It is often difficult to sell a property with a short lease because mortgage lenders may be reluctant to lend money on such properties. Lease enfranchisement can be a protracted process. We advise that you get professional assistance from a solicitor and surveyor with experience in this area

I work for a long established estate agency in Bargoed where we have witnessed a few leasehold sales put at risk due to short leases. I have been given conflicting advice from local Bargoed conveyancing solicitors. Please can you confirm whether the seller of a flat can start the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

As long as the seller has been the owner 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. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser can avoid having 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 sale.

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.

Bargoed Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - Examples of Queries Prior to buying

Where a Bargoed lease has no more than eighty years it will impact the value of the flat. Check with your bank that they are willing to go ahead with the loan given the lease term. A short lease means that you will most likely require a lease extension at some point and it is worth finding out how much this would cost. For most Bargoedlease extensions you will need to own the residence for 24 months in order to be eligible to carry out a lease extension.