Having had my offer accepted I require leasehold conveyancing in Crowborough. Before diving in I require certainty as to the remaining lease term.

Assuming the lease is registered - and 99.9% are in Crowborough - then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars 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've recently bought a leasehold property in Crowborough. Do I have any liability for service charges for periods before my ownership?

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. However, 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 am employed by a busy estate agent office in Crowborough where we have experienced a few leasehold sales jeopardised due to short leases. I have received contradictory information from local Crowborough conveyancing firms. Could you confirm whether the seller of a flat can start the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

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. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser can avoid having to wait 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done prior to, 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.

What are your top tips when it comes to finding a Crowborough conveyancing practice to carry out our lease extension conveyancing?

If you are instructing a conveyancer for your lease extension (regardless if they are a Crowborough conveyancing firm) it is imperative that he or she should be familiar with the legislation and specialises in this area of conveyancing. We recommend that you talk with two or three firms including non Crowborough conveyancing practices prior to instructing a firm. If the firm is ALEP accredited then that’s a bonus. Some following of questions might be of use:

• How experienced is the practice with lease extension legislation?

What are the common deficiencies that you see in leases for Crowborough properties?

Leasehold conveyancing in Crowborough is not unique. Most leases is drafted differently and drafting errors can sometimes mean that certain clauses are erroneous. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the building
• A duty to insure the building
• 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 can cause issues when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Barclays , Bank of Scotland, and Nottingham Building Society all have very detailed requirements when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease does not cover certain provisions they may refuse to grant the mortgage, forcing the purchaser to withdraw.

Crowborough Leasehold Conveyancing - Sample of Questions you should ask before buying

The best form of lease structure is a share of the freehold. In this scenario the lessees enjoy control and although a managing agent is often retained if it is larger than a house conversion, the managing agent employed by the leaseholders. Where a Crowborough lease has fewer than 80 years it will affect the marketability of the apartment. It is worth checking with your mortgage company that they are happy with remaining years on the lease. Leases with less than 80 years remaining means that you will probably require a lease extension at some point and it is worth finding out how much this would cost. For most Crowboroughlease extensions you will be required to have owned the property for two years in order to be eligible to carry out a lease extension. How many of the leaseholders are in arrears for their maintenance charge payments?

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Crowborough