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

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When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in Beacon Hill, you will need to instruct a conveyancing lawyer with leasehold experience. Whether your mortgage company is to be Halifax, Yorkshire Building Society or NatWest be sure to choose a lawyer on their panel. Find a Beacon Hill conveyancing lawyer with our search tool

Beacon Hill leasehold conveyancing: Q and A’s

My wife and I purchased a leasehold flat in Beacon Hill. Conveyancing and Nottingham Building Society mortgage are in place. 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 1995. The conveyancing solicitor in Beacon Hill who previously acted has now retired.What should I do?

First contact HMLR to be sure that this person is indeed the registered owner of the freehold reversion. You do not need to instruct a Beacon Hill 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 legitimate landlord, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

Last month I purchased a leasehold house in Beacon Hill. Do I have any liability for service charges relating to a period prior to my ownership?

In a situation where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous lessee and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. However, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. A critical element of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to ensure to have an up to date clear service charge receipt before completion of your purchase. If you have a mortgage this is likely to be a requirement of your lender.

If you purchase part way through an accounting year you may be liable for charges not yet demanded even if they relate to a period prior to your purchase. In such circumstances your conveyancer would normally arrange for the seller to set aside some money to cover their part of the period (usually called a service charge retention).

I work for a long established estate agency in Beacon Hill where we have witnessed a few flat sales derailed as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given conflicting advice from local Beacon Hill conveyancing solicitors. Could you shed some light as to whether the vendor of a flat can instigate the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

Provided that the seller has owned the lease 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 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 before, or simultaneously with 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 buyer.

Do you have any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Beacon Hill from the perspective of expediting the sale process?

  • Much of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Beacon Hill can be reduced if you appoint lawyers as soon as you market your property and ask them to collate the leasehold documentation which will be required by the purchasers’ representatives.
  • The majority landlords or managing agents in Beacon Hill charge for providing management packs for a leasehold property. You or your lawyers should discover the fee that they propose to charge. The management information can be applied for on or before finding a buyer, thus reducing delays. The typical amount of time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most common cause of delay in leasehold conveyancing in Beacon Hill.
  • Some Beacon Hill leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this is the case, you should place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers put in hand bank and professional references. Any bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are financially capable of paying the yearly 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 any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are resolved prior to the flat being put on the market. The buyers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a property where there is an ongoing dispute. You may have to bite the bullet and pay any arrears of service charge or settle the dispute prior to the buyers completing the purchase. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled ahead of the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You will still have to reveal particulars of the dispute to the buyers, but it is better to reveal the dispute as historic as opposed to unresolved.
  • You believe that you know the number of years remaining on your lease but it would be wise to double-check via your conveyancers. A buyer’s conveyancer will be unlikely to recommend their client to where the lease term is less than 75 years. In the circumstances it is important at an as soon as possible that you consider whether the lease for your property needs extending. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your home on the market for sale.

    • We expect to complete our sale of a £500000 garden flat in Beacon Hill next week. The freeholder has quoted £372 for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and 3 years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge exorbitant fees for a flat conveyance in Beacon Hill?

    Beacon Hill conveyancing on leasehold apartments usually requires the buyer’s solicitor submitting questions for the landlord to answer. Although the landlord is under no legal obligation to address these enquiries most will be content to do so. They are at liberty charge a reasonable administration fee for responding to enquiries or supplying documentation. There is no upper cap for such fees. The average costs for the information that you are referring to is £350, in some cases it exceeds £800. The management information fee demanded by the landlord must be accompanied by a summary of rights and obligations in relation to administration fees, otherwise the charge is technically not due. In reality one has little choice but to pay whatever is requested of you should you wish to complete the sale of your home.

    Leasehold Conveyancing in Beacon Hill - A selection of Questions you should ask before Purchasing

      Where a Beacon Hill lease has fewer than eighty years it will impact the salability of the property. It is worth checking with your mortgage company that they are content with the length of the lease. Leases with less than 80 years remaining means that you will probably require a lease extension sooner rather than later and it is worth discovering how much this will be. For most Beacon Hilllease extensions you would be required to have been the owner of the premises for two years before you are entitled to carry out a lease extension. Many Beacon Hill leasehold apartments will be liable to pay a service bill for maintenance of the block invoiced on behalf of the freeholder. Where you buy the flat you will have to meet this contribution, normally periodically throughout the year. This could differ from a couple of hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for blocks with lifts and large communal grounds. In all likelihood there will be a ground rent for you to pay annual, ordinarily this is not a significant sum, say about £50-£100 but you should to enquire as on occasion it could be many hundreds of pounds. It would be prudent to discover as much as possible about the company managing the building as they will impact your use and enjoyment of the property. Being a leasehold owner you are often at the mercy of the managing agents from a financial perspective and when it comes to practical issues such as the tidiness of the communal areas. You should not be afraid to ask other people what they think of their service. Finally, be sure you discover the dates that the service charges are due to the managing agents and precisely what it includes.

    Other Topics

    Lease Extensions in Beacon Hill