Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only 68 years remaining on my lease in Bishopston. I now wish to extend my lease but my freeholder is missing. What are my options?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application 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 or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to track down the landlord. In some cases a specialist would be useful to conduct investigations and prepare an expert document which can be used as evidence that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer in relation to investigating the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court covering Bishopston.

Last month I purchased a leasehold property in Bishopston. Am I liable to pay service charges relating to a period prior to completion of my purchase?

Where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous owner 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 be sure 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 am employed by a busy estate agent office in Bishopston where we see a number of leasehold sales derailed as a result of short leases. I have received conflicting advice from local Bishopston conveyancing firms. Could you clarify whether the owner of a flat can commence 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 commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser need not have to wait 2 years to extend their lease. 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 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.

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Bishopston with the aim of expediting the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Bishopston can be bypassed where you instruct lawyers as soon as your agents start marketing the property and request that they start to collate the leasehold documentation needed by the purchasers’ conveyancers.
• If you have carried out any alterations to the premises would they have required Landlord’s consent? In particular have you laid down wooden flooring? Most leases in Bishopston state that internal structural alterations or laying down wooden flooring necessitate a licence issued by the Landlord approving such alterations. If you fail to have the approvals to hand you should not communicate with the landlord without checking with your lawyer before hand.
• A minority of Bishopston leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers put in hand financial (bank) and professional references. The bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are 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 service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the purchasers or their solicitors.
• If there is a history of any disputes with your landlord or managing agents it is very important that these are resolved before the property is marketed. The purchasers and their solicitors will be concerned about purchasing a flat 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 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 will still have to reveal particulars of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is better to present the dispute as over as opposed to ongoing.
• You believe that you know the number of years remaining on your lease but it would be advisable verify this via your conveyancers. A purchaser's lawyer 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 requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your property on the market for sale.

All being well we will complete our sale of a £ 125000 garden flat in Bishopston on Thursday in a week. The management company has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and 3 years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge exorbitant fees for a flat conveyance in Bishopston?

Bishopston conveyancing on leasehold flats usually results in fees being raised by management companies :

• Answering pre-contract enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Bishopston
• Supplying insurance information
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your solicitor will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Bishopston leasehold premises is £350. For Bishopston 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 obliged to provide answers.

I own a garden flat in Bishopston, conveyancing having been completed 6 years ago. Can you shed any light on how much the price could be for a 90 year extension to my lease? Comparable properties in Bishopston with an extended lease are worth £231,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £45 invoiced annually. The lease terminates on 21st October 2078

With just 52 years unexpired we estimate the premium for your lease extension to span between £32,300 and £37,400 as well as legals.

The figure above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to provide a more accurate figure in the absence of detailed due diligence. Do not use this information in tribunal or court proceedings. There are no doubt other concerns that need to be considered and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not move forward based on this information before seeking the advice of a professional.