I have recently realised that I have 72 years unexpired on my lease in Bury. I need to extend my lease but my landlord is missing. What are my options?

On the basis that 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 done all that could be expected to find the lessor. For most situations a specialist would be helpful to try and locate and to produce a report to be used as proof that the landlord can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a property lawyer in relation to proving the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Bury.

My wife and I purchased a leasehold flat in Bury. Conveyancing and TSB mortgage organised. A letter has just been received from someone claiming to own the freehold. It included a ground rent demand for rent dating back to 1995. The conveyancing practitioner in Bury who previously acted has long since retired.What should I do?

The first thing you should do is make enquiries of the Land Registry to be sure that this person is in fact the registered owner of the freehold reversion. You do not need to instruct a Bury conveyancing practitioner to do this as it can be done on-line for less than a fiver. You should note that regardless, even if this is the legitimate freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 no more than 6 years of rent can be collected.

I am a negotiator for a long established estate agent office in Bury where we see a number of leasehold sales put at risk as a result of short leases. I have been given contradictory information from local Bury conveyancing solicitors. Could you clarify whether the owner of a flat can instigate the lease extension process for the buyer?

Provided that the seller has been the owner 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. The benefit of this is that the buyer 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 needs to be completed before, or simultaneously with completion of the disposal of the property.

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 advice for leasehold conveyancing in Bury from the point of view of speeding up the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Bury can be bypassed where you appoint lawyers as soon as your agents start advertising the property and ask them to collate the leasehold information needed by the purchasers’ lawyers.
• The majority landlords or managing agents in Bury levy fees for providing management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should enquire as to the actual amount of the charges. The management information can be applied for as soon as you have a buyer, thus reducing delays. The average time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most usual reason for frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Bury.

In the event that you altered the property did you need the Landlord’s approval? Have you, for example installed wooden flooring? Most leases in Bury state that internal structural alterations or addition of wooden flooring require a licence from the Landlord consenting to such works. Should you dont have the consents to hand you should not communicate with the landlord without contacting your lawyer in the first instance.

Some Bury leases require Landlord’s consent to the sale and approval of the buyers. If this is the case, you should place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers put in hand financial (bank) and professional references. The bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is 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 service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the purchasers or their lawyers.

If there is a history of conflict with your freeholder or managing agents it is essential that these are settled 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 will have to accept that you will have to discharge 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 are still duty bound to disclose particulars of the dispute to the buyers, but it is clearly preferable to reveal the dispute as historic as opposed to unsettled.

Our conveyancer has advised that he intends to complete and exchange simultaneously on the sale of our £300000 maisonette in Bury next Wednesday . The landlords agents has quoted £420 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and previous years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in Bury?

Bury conveyancing on leasehold flats ordinarily necessitates administration charges invoiced by freeholders :

• Completing conveyancing due diligence enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Bury
• Supplying insurance information
• 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 Bury leasehold premises is £350. For Bury 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.

I purchased a basement flat in Bury, conveyancing formalities finalised 2011. Can you let me have an estimate of the premium that my landlord can legally expect in return for granting a renewal of my lease? Equivalent flats in Bury with over 90 years remaining are worth £230,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £65 levied per year. The lease terminates on 21st October 2088

You have 63 years remaining on your lease we estimate the price of your lease extension to span between £18,100 and £20,800 plus plus your own and the landlord's "reasonable" professional fees.

The figure above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs in the absence of comprehensive investigations. Do not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt additional issues that need to be considered and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not take any other action placing reliance on this information without first seeking the advice of a professional.

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Lease Extensions in Bury