My wife and I may need to sub-let our Charmouth ground floor flat temporarily due to a new job. We used a Charmouth conveyancing practice in 2002 but they have since shut and we did not have the foresight to seek any guidance as to whether the lease allows us to sublet. How do we find out?

Notwithstanding that your last Charmouth conveyancing lawyer is not available you can review your lease to check if you are permitted to let out the premises. The rule is that if the lease is silent, subletting is allowed. There may be a precondition that you must seek consent via your landlord or other appropriate person prior to subletting. This means that you cannot sublet without prior consent. The 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.

Last month I purchased a leasehold flat in Charmouth. Am I liable to pay service charges relating to a period prior to 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 be sure 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 a negotiator for a long established estate agency in Charmouth where we have witnessed a number of leasehold sales put at risk as a result of short leases. I have been given contradictory information from local Charmouth conveyancing solicitors. Could you shed some light as to whether the owner of a flat can start 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 kick-start 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 sit tight for 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed 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.

Do you have any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Charmouth from the point of view of saving time on the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Charmouth can be avoided if you instruct lawyers the minute your agents start advertising the property and request that they start to put together the leasehold documentation needed by the buyers solicitors.
• Many landlords or Management Companies in Charmouth charge for providing management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should enquire as to the fee that they propose to charge. The management pack can be applied for on or before finding a buyer, thus reducing delays. The average time it takes to obtain the necessary information is three weeks. It is the most frequent reason for frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Charmouth.

In the event that you altered the property did you need the Landlord’s approval? Have you, for example installed wooden flooring? Charmouth leases often stipulate that internal structural alterations or installing wooden flooring require a licence issued by the Landlord acquiescing to such changes. Where you fail to have the consents in place you should not communicate with the landlord without contacting your lawyer first.

Some Charmouth leases require Landlord’s consent to the sale and approval of the buyers. If this applies to your lease, you should notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers put in hand financial (bank) and professional references. Any bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are 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 service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their solicitors.

You may think that you are aware of the number of years remaining on your lease but you should verify this by asking your lawyers. A buyer’s lawyer will not be happy to advise their client to where the lease term is below 75 years. In the circumstances it is essential at an early stage that you identify whether the lease term requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your premises on the market for sale.

Our conveyancer has advised that he intends to complete and exchange simultaneously on the disposal of our £300000 garden flat in Charmouth next week. The freeholder has quoted £300 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and 3 years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a flat conveyance in Charmouth?

Charmouth conveyancing on leasehold apartments nine out of ten times necessitates fees being invoiced by landlords agents :

• Answering pre-exchange questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Charmouth
• 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 conveyancer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Charmouth leasehold property is £350. For Charmouth 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 answers.

I am the registered owner of a 2 bed flat in Charmouth, conveyancing formalities finalised in 2001. Can you shed any light on how much the price could be for a 90 year extension to my lease? Similar properties in Charmouth with an extended lease are worth £194,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £65 per annum. The lease ends on 21st October 2078

With just 57 years left to run we estimate the premium for your lease extension to be between £24,700 and £28,600 as well as costs.

The suggested premium range above a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we are not able to supply a more accurate figure in the absence of detailed investigations. You should not use this information in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be other issues that need to be taken into account and you obviously want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not move forward based on this information without first getting professional advice.

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Lease Extensions in Charmouth