I have recently realised that I have Seventy years left on my flat in Charlbury. I am keen to get lease extension but my freeholder is missing. What options are available to me?

If 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 extended by the magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you or your lawyers have done all that could be expected to locate the freeholder. On the whole a specialist may be useful to conduct investigations and to produce an expert document to be accepted by the court as proof that the landlord is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a solicitor in relation to devolving into the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court covering Charlbury.

Expecting to complete next month on a studio apartment in Charlbury. Conveyancing solicitors inform me that they report fully next week. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

The report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Charlbury should include some of the following:

• The physical extent of the demise. This will be the flat itself but may include a roof space or basement if applicable.

Last month I purchased a leasehold property in Charlbury. Am I liable to pay service charges for periods before 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. A critical element 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 Charlbury where we see a few flat sales jeopardised due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given conflicting advice from local Charlbury conveyancing solicitors. Could you confirm whether the owner of a flat can initiate the lease extension process for the buyer?

Provided that the seller has owned the lease 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 proposed purchaser can avoid having 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 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.

What makes a Charlbury lease unacceptable for security purposes?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Charlbury. All leases are unique and drafting errors can result in certain provisions are erroneous. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• A provision to repair to or maintain elements of the property
• Insurance obligations
• Clauses dealing with recovering service charges for expenditure on the building or common parts.
• Maintenance charge proportions which don’t add up to the correct percentage

A defective lease will likely cause problems when trying to sell a property as they can affect a potential buyer’s ability to obtain a mortgage. Santander, The Mortgage Works, and Alliance & Leicester all have very detailed requirements when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is defective they may refuse to provide security, obliging the buyer to withdraw.

Charlbury Leasehold Conveyancing - A selection of Queries Prior to Purchasing

The best form of lease structure is a share of the freehold. In this scenario the leaseholders benefit from being in charge if their destiny and although a managing agent is usually retained where it is bigger than a house conversion, the managing agent is directed by the tenants. On the whole the outlay for major works tend not to be incorporated into the maintenance charges, although some managing agents in Charlbury require leasehold owners to contribute towards a reserve fund created for the specific purpose of building a fund for larger works. It would be sensible to investigate if the the lease includes any unreasonable restrictions in the lease. By way of example plenty of leases prohibit pets being permitted in in a block in Charlbury. If you love the propertyin Charlbury however your cat can’t live with you then you have a very hard determination.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Charlbury