There are only 68 years left on my flat in Broadstone. I now wish to extend my lease but my landlord is can not be found. What should I do?

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 mean that your lease can be granted an extra 90 years 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. On the whole an enquiry agent may be helpful to try and locate and to produce a report which can be accepted by the court as evidence that the landlord is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a property lawyer both on devolving into the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Broadstone.

I am looking at a couple of flats in Broadstone which have approximately forty five years remaining on the leases. Should I regard a short lease as a deal breaker?

There are plenty of short leases in Broadstone. 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 decreases and results in it becoming more costly to extend the lease. This is why it is generally wise to extend the lease term. It is often difficult to sell a property with a short lease because mortgage lenders less inclined to grant a loan on properties of this type. Lease enfranchisement can be a protracted process. We recommend you seek professional assistance from a solicitor and surveyor with experience in this area

Last month I purchased a leasehold flat in Broadstone. Do I have any liability for service charges relating to a period prior to completion of my purchase?

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).

Do you have any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Broadstone with the intention of speeding up the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Broadstone can be bypassed where you get in touch lawyers as soon as your agents start marketing the property and ask them to collate the leasehold information which will be required by the buyers lawyers.
• Many freeholders or Management Companies in Broadstone charge for supplying management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should find out the fee that they propose to charge. The management information sought as soon as you have a buyer, thus accelerating the process. The typical amount of time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most frequent cause of frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Broadstone.

If you have carried out any alterations to the residence would they have required Landlord’s permission? Have you, for example laid down wooden flooring? Most leases in Broadstone state that internal structural changes or addition of wooden flooring require a licence issued by the Landlord approving such alterations. Should you fail to have the approvals in place you should not communicate with the landlord without contacting your lawyer first.

A minority of Broadstone leases require Landlord’s consent to the sale and approval of the buyers. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers obtain bank and professional references. The 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 buyers or their lawyers.

If there is a history of any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are settled prior to the flat being put on the market. The buyers and their solicitors will be warry about purchasing a flat where there is a current dispute. You may need to swallow your pride and pay any arrears of service charge or resolve the dispute prior to the buyers completing the purchase. 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 details of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is better to reveal the dispute as historic as opposed to unsettled.

Our conveyancer has advised that he intends to complete and exchange simultaneously on the disposal of our £125000 maisonette in Broadstone in just under a week. The management company has quoted £312 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and previous years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge exorbitant fees for a leasehold conveyance in Broadstone?

For most leasehold sales in Broadstone conveyancing will involve, queries regarding the management of a building inevitably needing to be answered directly by the freeholder or its agent, this includes :

• Addressing conveyancing due diligence questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Broadstone
• 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 Broadstone leasehold property is £350. For Broadstone 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 supply answers.

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

What restrictions exist in the Broadstone Lease? What is the yearly maintenance fee and ground rent? How long is the Lease?

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Broadstone