My wife and I may need to rent out our Barnstaple basement flat for a while due to a new job. We used a Barnstaple conveyancing practice in 2002 but they have since shut and we did not think at the time seek any advice as to whether the lease allows us to sublet. How do we find out?

Even though your previous Barnstaple conveyancing lawyer is not available you can review your lease to see if it allows you to sublet the apartment. The rule is that if the lease is silent, subletting is allowed. Quite often there is a prerequisite that you need to obtain permission from your landlord or other appropriate person in advance of subletting. The net result is you not allowed to sublet in the absence of first obtaining consent. The consent is not allowed to be unreasonably refused ore delayed. If your lease does not allow you to sublet you should ask your landlord for their consent.

I only have Sixty One years remaining on my flat in Barnstaple. I need to extend my lease but my landlord is absent. 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 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 magistrate. However, you will be required to demonstrate that you have done all that could be expected to track down the landlord. On the whole a specialist may be helpful to try and locate and to produce an expert document which can be accepted by the court as evidence that the landlord can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a solicitor both on investigating the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Barnstaple.

Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my ground floor apartment in Barnstaple.Conveyancing has not commenced but I have just received a quarterly service charge demand – what should I do?

The sensible thing to do is pay 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 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.

Do you have any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Barnstaple from the point of view of saving time on the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Barnstaple can be reduced if you get in touch lawyers the minute you market your property and request that they start to put together the leasehold documentation which will be required by the purchasers’ solicitors.
• Many freeholders or Management Companies in Barnstaple charge for supplying management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should discover the fee that they propose to charge. The management information sought as soon as you have a buyer, thus accelerating the process. The average time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most frequent cause of delay in leasehold conveyancing in Barnstaple.

A minority of Barnstaple 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 financially capable of paying 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 service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the purchasers or their lawyers.

If you have the benefit of shareholding in the freehold, you should make sure that you hold the original share certificate. Arranging a re-issued share certificate can be a time consuming formality and frustrates many a Barnstaple conveyancing deal. If a duplicate share is necessary, do contact the company director and secretary 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 it would be advisable verify this via your lawyers. A purchaser's conveyancer will not be happy to advise their client to where the remaining number of years is less than 80 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 £250000 garden flat in Barnstaple next Wednesday . The landlords agents has quoted £336 for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and 3 years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in Barnstaple?

Barnstaple conveyancing on leasehold apartments usually results in administration charges raised by management companies :

• Completing pre-exchange enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Barnstaple
• Copies of the building insurance and schedule
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your conveyancer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Barnstaple leasehold property is £350. For Barnstaple 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 supply answers.

Barnstaple Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - A selection of Queries before Purchasing

The best form of lease structure is a share of the freehold. In this scenario the lessees enjoy being in charge if their destiny and notwithstanding that a managing agent is frequently employed if it is bigger than a house conversion, the managing agent is directed by the tenants. In the main the outlay for major works are not included within service charges, although some managing agents in Barnstaple require leasehold owners to pay into a sinking fund created for the specific purpose of building a fund for major works. How much is the ground rent and service charge?

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Barnstaple