I have recently realised that I have 62 years unexpired on my lease in Cambourne. I now wish to extend my lease but my landlord is missing. What should I do?

On the basis that you meet the appropriate requirements, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply 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 Court. However, you will be required to prove that you have used your best endeavours to track down the freeholder. For most situations an enquiry agent may be useful to try and locate and to produce an expert document to be accepted by the court as proof that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a solicitor both on devolving into the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court overseeing Cambourne.

Planning to sign contracts shortly on a basement flat in Cambourne. Conveyancing lawyers have said that they report fully tomorrow. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

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

• Does the lease prohibit wood flooring?

Whether your lease has a provision for a sinking fund?

Repair and maintenance of the flat

Changes to the flat (alterations and additions)

Responsibility for repairing the window frames

What you can do if a neighbour is in violation of a provision in their lease?

What the implications are if you breach a clause of your lease? For a comprehensive list of information to be contained in your report on your leasehold property in Cambourne please enquire of your solicitor in advance of your conveyancing in Cambourne

Last month I purchased a leasehold house in Cambourne. 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. 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 agent office in Cambourne where we have witnessed a number of leasehold sales put at risk due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received conflicting advice from local Cambourne conveyancing solicitors. Could you confirm whether the seller of a flat can instigate the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

As long as the seller has owned the lease 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 buyer need not have 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 at the same time as completion of the sale.

Alternatively, it may be possible 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.

If all goes to plan we aim to complete our sale of a £175000 garden flat in Cambourne next Monday . The management company has quoted £336 for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and previous years statements of service charge. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in Cambourne?

Cambourne conveyancing on leasehold flats usually involves fees being invoiced by landlords agents :

• Addressing pre-exchange questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Cambourne
• Copies of the building insurance and schedule
• 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 Cambourne leasehold premises is £350. For Cambourne 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 required to provide the information.

Leasehold Conveyancing in Cambourne - Examples of Questions you should consider Prior to Purchasing

The majority of Cambourne leasehold properties will be liable to pay a service bill for maintenance of the building levied by the landlord. If you buy the apartment you will have to meet this contribution, normally quarterly accross the year. This could differ from a couple of hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for blocks with lifts and large common areas. There will also be a rentcharge to be met annual, ordinarily this is not a large sum, say about £50-£100 but you should to check it because sometimes it could be many hundreds of pounds. How much is the annual service fee and ground rent? The best form of lease structure is a share of the freehold. In this scenario the tenants benefit from being in charge if their destiny and although a managing agent is often employed where it is bigger than a house conversion, the managing agent retained by the leaseholders.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Cambourne