Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Seventy years left on my flat in Bishopsworth. I am keen to extend my lease but my freeholder 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 submit an application to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be lengthened by the magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to find the lessor. In some cases a specialist should be useful to carry out a search and prepare a report to be accepted by the court as evidence that the landlord can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer both on proving the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court overseeing Bishopsworth.

I've recently bought a leasehold property in Bishopsworth. 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. Strange as it may seem, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. It is an essential part 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 am employed by a long established estate agency in Bishopsworth where we have experienced a number of leasehold sales derailed due to short leases. I have received conflicting advice from local Bishopsworth conveyancing solicitors. Please can you clarify whether the seller of a flat can commence the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

Provided that 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 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 needs to be completed 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.

If all goes to plan we aim to complete the sale of our £250000 flat in Bishopsworth in 8 days. The managing agents has quoted £348 for Certificate of Compliance, building insurance schedule and 3 years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in Bishopsworth?

Bishopsworth conveyancing on leasehold flats normally necessitates the purchaser’s conveyancer submitting questions for the landlord to answer. Although the landlord is not legally bound to address these enquiries most will be content to do so. They are at liberty charge a reasonable administration fee for responding to questions or supplying documentation. There is no upper cap for such fees. The average fee for the information that you are referring to is over three hundred pounds, in some transactions it is above £800. The management information fee levied by the landlord must be accompanied by a summary of entitlements and obligations in relation to administration charges, otherwise the charge is not strictly payable. In reality you have little option but to pay whatever is demanded should you wish to complete the sale of your home.

What makes a Bishopsworth lease unacceptable for security purposes?

Leasehold conveyancing in Bishopsworth is not unique. All leases are unique and drafting errors can sometimes mean that certain provisions are missing. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:

• A provision to repair to or maintain parts of the property
• A duty to insure the building
• 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 a problem when selling your property if you have a defective lease as they can affect a potential buyer’s ability to obtain a mortgage. Accord Mortgages Ltd, Virgin Money, and Nottingham Building Society all have very detailed conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is defective they may refuse to grant the mortgage, forcing the purchaser to pull out.

I bought a leasehold flat in Bishopsworth, conveyancing was carried out half a dozen years ago. Can you work out an approximate cost of a lease extension? Comparable properties in Bishopsworth with a long lease are worth £182,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £45 levied per year. The lease finishes on 21st October 2102

With only 77 years unexpired we estimate the premium for your lease extension to span between £10,500 and £12,000 as well as professional fees.

The suggested premium range that we have given is a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we are not able to advice on the actual costs in the absence of detailed due diligence. You should not use this information in tribunal or court proceedings. There are no doubt other concerns that need to be taken into account and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you move forward based on this information without first seeking the advice of a professional.

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Lease Extensions in Bishopsworth