Planning to complete next month on a ground floor flat in Clophill. Conveyancing solicitors inform me that they will have a report out to me next week. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

Your report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Clophill should include some of the following:

• Details of the parties to the lease, for example these could be the leaseholder (you), head lessor, freeholder

Does the lease prevent you from letting out the flat, or having a home office for business

An explanation as to the provision in the lease to pay service charges - with regard to both the building, and the more general rights a leaseholder has

Whether your lease has a provision for a sinking fund?

I don't know whether the lease allows me to alter or improve anything in the flat - you should know whether it applies to all alterations or just structural alteration, and whether consent is required

Whether the landlord has obligations to ensure rights of quiet enjoyment over your property and do you know what it means in practice?

Responsibility for repairing the window frames For details of the information to be contained in your report on your leasehold property in Clophill please enquire of your lawyer in ahead of your conveyancing in Clophill

I have just started marketing my 2 bed flat in Clophill.Conveyancing lawyers have not yet been instructed but I have just received a quarterly maintenance charge demand – Do I pay up?

The sensible thing to do is pay 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 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. This will smooth the conveyancing process.

I own a leasehold flat in Clophill. Conveyancing and Platform Home Loans Ltd mortgage are in place. I have received a letter from someone claiming to own the freehold. Attached was a ground rent demand for rent dating back to 1992. The conveyancing practitioner in Clophill who previously acted has long since retired.Any advice?

The first thing you should do is contact the Land Registry to be sure that this person is in fact the new freeholder. You do not need to instruct a Clophill conveyancing firm to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for less than a fiver. Rest assured that in any event, even if this is the legitimate freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

I work for a long established estate agency in Clophill where we see a number of leasehold sales put at risk as a result of short leases. I have received inconsistent advice from local Clophill conveyancing solicitors. Could you shed some light as to whether the owner of a flat can instigate the lease extension formalities 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 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 can avoid having to wait 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed before, or at the same time as 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.

All being well we will complete our sale of a £125000 apartment in Clophill next week. The freeholder has quoted £312 for Certificate of Compliance, building insurance schedule and 3 years statements of service charge. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a flat conveyance in Clophill?

For the majority of leasehold sales in Clophill conveyancing will involve, questions about the management of a building inevitably needing to be answered directly by the freeholder or its agent, this includes :

• Addressing pre-exchange questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Clophill
• 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 Clophill leasehold property is £350. For Clophill 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 supply answers.

I own a garden flat in Clophill, conveyancing formalities finalised half a dozen years ago. Can you shed any light on how much the price could be for a 90 year extension to my lease? Similar flats in Clophill with an extended lease are worth £218,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £65 yearly. The lease runs out on 21st October 2085

With 60 years left to run we estimate the premium for your lease extension to be between £20,000 and £23,000 plus costs.

The suggested premium range above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs without more detailed investigations. Do not use this information in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt additional issues that need to be considered and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you move forward based on this information before getting professional advice.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Clophill