My husband and I may need to rent out our Chadderton 1st floor flat temporarily due to taking a sabbatical. We instructed a Chadderton conveyancing firm in 2003 but they have since shut and we did not think at the time get any guidance as to whether the lease prohibits the subletting of the flat. How do we find out?

Notwithstanding that your last Chadderton conveyancing solicitor is not around you can review your lease to check if it allows you to sublet the premises. The accepted inference is that if the lease is silent, subletting is allowed. There may be a precondition that you must obtain consent from your landlord or some other party before subletting. The net result is that you cannot sublet in the absence of prior consent. Such consent must not not be unreasonably refused ore delayed. If your lease does not allow you to sublet you should ask your landlord for their consent.

I am a negotiator for a long established estate agent office in Chadderton where we have witnessed a few flat sales put at risk as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given conflicting advice from local Chadderton conveyancing solicitors. Can you shed some light as to whether the owner of a flat can start the lease extension formalities 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 kick-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 wait 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done before, or simultaneously with completion of the sale.

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 buyer.

Do you have any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Chadderton with the intention of speeding up the sale process?

• Much of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Chadderton can be reduced where you instruct lawyers as soon as you market your property and ask them to put together the leasehold information which will be required by the buyers representatives.
• Many freeholders or managing agents in Chadderton levy fees for supplying management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should find out the fee that they propose to charge. The management pack sought on or before finding a buyer, thus accelerating the process. The average time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most usual reason for delay in leasehold conveyancing in Chadderton.

If you have carried out any alterations to the premises would they have required Landlord’s approval? In particular have you installed wooden flooring? Most leases in Chadderton state that internal structural changes or laying down wooden flooring require a licence from the Landlord consenting to such changes. Should you dont have the consents in place you should not communicate with the landlord without checking with your lawyer first.

A minority of Chadderton leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this is the case, it would be prudent to notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers put in hand bank and professional references. Any 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 actual amount of the service charge so that they can pass this information on to the purchasers or their lawyers.

If there is a history of any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is essential that these are settled prior to the flat being marketed. The buyers and their solicitors will be nervous about purchasing a flat where there is an ongoing dispute. You will have to accept that you will have to pay any arrears of service charge or resolve the dispute prior to completion of the sale. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled prior to the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You are still duty bound to disclose details of the dispute to the buyers, but it is better to reveal the dispute as over as opposed to unresolved.

Our conveyancer has advised that he intends to complete and exchange simultaneously on the sale of our £325000 maisonette in Chadderton on Monday in a week. The landlords agents has quoted £396 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and previous years statements of service charge. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in Chadderton?

Chadderton conveyancing on leasehold maisonettes nine out of ten times necessitates administration charges raised by landlords agents :

• Answering pre-exchange enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Chadderton
• 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 Chadderton leasehold premises is £350. For Chadderton 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 provide the information.

Are there common deficiencies that you see in leases for Chadderton properties?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Chadderton. All leases are unique and legal mistakes in the legal wording can sometimes mean that certain provisions are not included. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:

• A provision to repair to or maintain elements 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

A defective lease can cause issues when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Birmingham Midshires, The Royal Bank of Scotland, and Platform Home Loans Ltd all have very detailed conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. Where a lender has been advised by their lawyers that the lease is defective they may refuse to provide security, forcing the purchaser to pull out.

Leasehold Conveyancing in Chadderton - A selection of Questions you should consider Prior to buying

Many Chadderton leasehold apartments will incur a service bill for the upkeep of the block invoiced by the management company. If you purchase the property you will have to meet this contribution, normally quarterly throughout the year. This can be anything from several hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for bigger purpose-built blocks. There will also be a ground rent for you to pay yearly, this is usually not a significant sum, say approximately £25-£75 but you should to check it because sometimes it can be many hundreds of pounds. Who are the managing agents? It would be wise to find out if there is anything that is prohibited in the lease. By way of example some leases prohibit pets being permitted in in a block in Chadderton. If you like the propertyin Chadderton but your dog can’t make the move with you then you will be presented with a hard choice.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Chadderton