I’m about to sell my garden flat in Chadderton.Conveyancing lawyers have not yet been instructed but I have just had a yearly maintenance charge invoice – what should I do?

The sensible thing to do is pay the service charge as normal because all ground rent and service charges will be apportioned on completion, so you will be reimbursed by the buyer for the period running from after the completion date to the next payment date. Most managing agents will not acknowledge the buyer until the service charges have been paid and are up to date so it is important for both buyer and seller for the seller to show that they are up to date. Having a clear account will assist your cause and will leave you no worse off financially.

I've recently bought a leasehold house in Chadderton. Am I liable to pay service charges for periods before my ownership?

In a situation 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).

I work for a busy estate agent office in Chadderton where we have experienced a number of flat sales derailed due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given inconsistent advice from local Chadderton conveyancing firms. Please can you shed some light as to whether the seller of a flat can commence 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 commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser need not have to wait 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done before, 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 buyer.

Can you provide any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Chadderton from the perspective of expediting the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Chadderton can be bypassed where you appoint lawyers as soon as your agents start marketing the property and ask them to put together the leasehold documentation needed by the purchasers’ representatives.
• The majority landlords or Management Companies in Chadderton charge for providing management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should discover 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 obtain the necessary information is three weeks. It is the most common cause of frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Chadderton.
• In the event that you altered the property did you need the Landlord’s consent? Have you, for example installed wooden flooring? Chadderton leases often stipulate that internal structural alterations or installing wooden flooring necessitate a licence issued by the Landlord consenting to such alterations. Should you dont have the approvals in place you should not communicate with the landlord without contacting your solicitor before hand.
• If you have had any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are settled before the property is marketed. The buyers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a property where there is a current dispute. You will have to accept that you will have to pay 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 will still have to reveal particulars of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is clearly preferable to reveal the dispute as historic rather than unresolved.
• If you are supposed to have a share in the Management Company, you should make sure that you have the original share certificate. Organising a re-issued share certificate is often a time consuming process and slows down many a Chadderton conveyancing transaction. Where a reissued share is required, do contact the company officers or managing agents (if relevant) for this as soon as possible.

We expect to complete our sale of a £ 200000 apartment in Chadderton in 5 days. The landlords agents has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and previous years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in Chadderton?

Chadderton conveyancing on leasehold flats normally involves administration charges raised by landlords agents :

• Answering pre-exchange questions
• 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 conveyancer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Chadderton leasehold property 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 required to provide answers.

I own a studio flat in Chadderton, conveyancing having been completed half a dozen years ago. Can you please calculate a probable premium for a statutory lease extension? Equivalent properties in Chadderton with a long lease are worth £182,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £50 charged once a year. The lease terminates on 21st October 2092

With only 66 years left to run the likely cost is going to range between £12,400 and £14,200 plus legals.

The figure above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to supply the actual costs without more comprehensive due diligence. Do not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be other issues that need to be considered and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you take any other action placing reliance on this information before getting professional advice.