Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only 62 years unexpired on my flat in Consett. I now wish to extend my lease but my landlord is missing. What should I do?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application to the County Court for an order 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 have made all reasonable attempts to find the landlord. On the whole a specialist would be useful to conduct investigations and to produce an expert document to be used 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 absence and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Consett.

Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my 2 bed apartment in Consett.Conveyancing solicitors are to be appointed soon but I have just had a yearly service charge demand – what should I do?

Your conveyancing lawyer is likely to suggest that you should discharge 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 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 employed by a long established estate agency in Consett where we see a few leasehold sales put at risk as a result of short leases. I have been given contradictory information from local Consett conveyancing firms. Please can you shed some light as to whether the vendor of a flat can initiate 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 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 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 at the same time as 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 purchaser.

Can you provide any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Consett with the aim of speeding up the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Consett can be avoided where you get in touch lawyers as soon as your agents start marketing the property and ask them to put together the leasehold information which will be required by the buyers conveyancers.
• Many freeholders or managing agents in Consett levy fees for providing management packs for a leasehold premises. You or your lawyers should discover the fee that they propose to charge. The management information sought as soon as you have a buyer, thus reducing delays. The typical amount of time it takes to obtain the necessary information is three weeks. It is the most common cause of frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Consett.
• Some Consett leases require Landlord’s consent to the sale and approval of the buyers. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers put in hand financial (bank) and professional references. The 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 actual amount of the service charge so that they can pass this information on to the purchasers or their lawyers.
• If you have had conflict with your freeholder or managing agents it is essential that these are resolved before the property is marketed. The buyers and their solicitors will be concerned about purchasing a property where there is a current dispute. You may need to swallow your pride and 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 present the dispute as historic as opposed to unsettled.
• You believe that you know the number of years left on your lease but you should double-check by asking your solicitors. A buyer’s conveyancer will be unlikely to recommend their client to where the lease term is below 75 years. It is therefore essential at an early stage that you consider whether the lease term for your property needs extending. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your home on the market for sale.

Completion in due on our sale of a £ 475000 flat in Consett next Friday . The managing agents has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and 3 years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge exorbitant fees for a leasehold conveyance in Consett?

For most leasehold sales in Consett conveyancing will involve, queries regarding the management of a building inevitably needing to be answered directly by the freeholder or its agent, this includes :

• Answering conveyancing due diligence questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Consett
• 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 Consett leasehold property is £350. For Consett 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 the information.

Leasehold Conveyancing in Consett - A selection of Queries Prior to buying

What is the the remaining lease term? Does the lease contain onerous restrictions?