There are only Fifty years left on my flat in Calstock. I now wish to extend my lease but my landlord is absent. What are my options?

If you meet the appropriate requirements, 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 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 locate the landlord. In some cases an enquiry agent should be useful to carry out a search and prepare a report which can be used as evidence that the landlord is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a solicitor in relation to investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Calstock.

I am hoping to exchange soon on a leasehold property in Calstock. Conveyancing solicitors assured me that they will have a report out to me on Monday. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

Your report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Calstock should include some of the following:

• You should receive a copy of the lease

My wife and I purchased a leasehold flat in Calstock. Conveyancing and Britannia mortgage organised. A letter has just been received from someone claiming to own the reversionary interest in the property. It included a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1994. The conveyancing solicitor in Calstock who acted for me is not around.Do I pay?

First contact the Land Registry to be sure that the individual purporting to own the freehold is indeed the registered owner of the freehold reversion. It is not necessary to instruct a Calstock conveyancing solicitor to do this as it can be done on-line for a few pound. 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 looking at a couple of flats in Calstock which have about forty five years left on the lease term. Will this present a problem?

There are plenty of short leases in Calstock. The lease is a legal document that entitles you to use the property for a prescribed time frame. As the lease gets shorter the marketability of the lease reduces and it becomes more expensive to acquire a lease extension. For this reason it is generally wise to extend the lease term. More often than not it is difficult to sell a property with a short lease as mortgage companies less inclined to grant a loan on properties of this type. Lease enfranchisement can be a protracted process. We recommend you seek professional help from a solicitor and surveyor with experience in this area

I am employed by a busy estate agency in Calstock where we have experienced a number of leasehold sales derailed as a result of short leases. I have received inconsistent advice from local Calstock conveyancing solicitors. Please can you shed some light as to whether the owner of a flat can start the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

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. This means that the proposed purchaser need not have to sit tight for 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 simultaneously with completion of the disposal of the property.

An alternative approach is to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord 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.

I invested in buying a 2 bed flat in Calstock, conveyancing having been completed in 1999. 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 properties in Calstock with an extended lease are worth £226,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £65 invoiced annually. The lease runs out on 21st October 2090

With only 68 years left to run we estimate the premium for your lease extension to be between £10,500 and £12,000 as well as plus your own and the landlord's "reasonable" professional fees.

The suggested premium range that we have given is a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs in the absence of comprehensive due diligence. Do not use the figures 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. Please do 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 Calstock