Having had my offer accepted I require leasehold conveyancing in City Of London. Before I get started I want to be sure as to the remaining lease term.

Assuming the lease is registered - and almost all are in City Of London - then the leasehold title will always include the basic details of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties. From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer and lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title.For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.

I have recently realised that I have 72 years unexpired on my lease in City Of London. I now want to get lease extension but my freeholder is can not be found. What options are available to me?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application to the County Court for for permission to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will mean that your lease can be granted an extra 90 years by the magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you or your lawyers have done all that could be expected to find the landlord. In some cases an enquiry agent would be helpful to conduct investigations and to produce an expert document which can be accepted by the court as proof that the landlord can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a property lawyer both on investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court overseeing City Of London.

I have just started marketing my 2 bed apartment in City Of London.Conveyancing solicitors are to be appointed soon but I have just received a yearly maintenance charge invoice – what should I do?

Your conveyancing lawyer is likely to suggest that you should discharge the invoice 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 management companies will not acknowledge the buyer unless 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. This will smooth the conveyancing process.

I am looking at a two maisonettes in City Of London both have about 50 years unexpired on the leases. Will this present a problem?

There is no doubt about it. A leasehold apartment in City Of London is a deteriorating asset as a result of the shortening lease. The nearer the lease gets to zero years unexpired, the more it reduces the marketability of the property. The majority of buyers and lenders, leases with less than eighty years become less and less marketable. On a more positive note, leaseholders can extend their leases by serving a Section 42 Notice. One stipulation is that they must have owned the property for two years (unlike a Section 13 notice for purchasing the freehold, when leaseholders can participate from day one of ownership). When successful, they will have the right to an extension of 90 years to the current term and ground rent is effectively reduced to zero. Before moving forward with a purchase of premises with a short lease term remaining you should talk to a solicitor specialising in lease extensions and leasehold enfranchisement. We are are happy to put you in touch with City Of London conveyancing experts who will explain the options available to you during an initial telephone conversation free of charge. More often than not it is possible to negotiate informally with the freeholder to extend the lease They may agree to a smaller lump sum and an increase in the ground rent, but to shorter extension terms in return. You need to ensure that the agreed terms represent good long-term value compared with the standard benefits of the Section 42 Notice and that onerous clauses are not inserted into any redrafting of the lease.

I work for a long established estate agency in City Of London where we see a number of flat sales put at risk due to short leases. I have been given contradictory information from local City Of London conveyancing solicitors. Please can you clarify whether the vendor of a flat can initiate the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

As long as 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. This means that the proposed purchaser can avoid having to sit tight for 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 sale.

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.

City Of London Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - Examples of Queries before buying

The best form of lease structure is if the freehold reversion is in the ownership of the leaseholders. In this scenario the lessees enjoy control and notwithstanding that a managing agent is frequently employed where the building is larger than a house conversion, the managing agent is directed by the tenants. How many of the leaseholders are in arrears for their service charge payments? Most City Of London leasehold properties will incur a service bill for the upkeep of the block invoiced by the management company. Should you purchase the apartment you will have to meet this contribution, usually quarterly throughout the year. This may differ from a few hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for buildings with lifts and large common areas. There will also be a rentcharge to be met yearly, this is usually not a significant figure, say approximately £25-£75 but you need to enquire as on occasion it could be many hundreds of pounds.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in City Of London