Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only 72 years remaining on my flat in Dartford. I need to extend my lease but my landlord is absent. What are my options?

If you meet the appropriate requirements, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be lengthened by the Court. You will be obliged to prove that you or your lawyers have made all reasonable attempts to find the landlord. On the whole a specialist should be useful to try and locate and to produce a report to be used as proof that the landlord can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a property lawyer both on proving the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court covering Dartford.

Planning to sign contracts shortly on a garden flat in Dartford. Conveyancing lawyers inform me that they report fully on Monday. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

The report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Dartford should include some of the following:

• The unexpired lease term You should be advised as what happens when the lease expires, and aware of the importance of not letting the lease term falling below eighty years

Does the lease require carpeting throughout thus preventing wood flooring?

Ground rent - how much and when you need to pay, and also know whether this is subject to change

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

Repair and maintenance of the flat

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

Responsibility for repairing the window frames For details of the information to be included in your report on your leasehold property in Dartford please ask your conveyancer in advance of your conveyancing in Dartford

I’m about to sell my basement flat in Dartford.Conveyancing solicitors are to be appointed soon but I have just had a yearly maintenance charge demand – Do I pay up?

Your conveyancing lawyer is likely to suggest that you should clear 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 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 am looking at a couple of flats in Dartford which have in the region of 50 years unexpired on the lease term. Will this present a problem?

There are plenty of short leases in Dartford. The lease is a right to use the property for a prescribed time frame. As a lease shortens the value of the lease reduces and it becomes more costly to extend the lease. This is why it is often a good idea to increase the term of the lease. It is often difficult to sell a property with a short lease because mortgage lenders may be unwilling to lend money on such properties. Lease enfranchisement can be a protracted process. We advise that you get professional help from a conveyancer and surveyor with experience in this arena

Completion in due on our sale of a £400000 flat in Dartford in 5 days. The managing agents has quoted £348 for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and previous years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a flat conveyance in Dartford?

For most leasehold sales in Dartford 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 enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Dartford
• Supplying insurance information
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your solicitor will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Dartford leasehold property is £350. For Dartford 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 provide answers.

Having spent years of correspondence we simply can't agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Dartford. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?

Most certainly. We can put you in touch with a Dartford conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Lease Extension decision for a Dartford residence is Various @ Colombus Square in January 2012. the Tribunal calculated the premiums to be paid for new leases for each of the flats in Mariners Walk to be £3822 and the premium to be paid for the new lease of 2 Knights Court to be £4439. This case affected 13 flats. The unexpired lease term was 76 years.

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Lease Extensions in Dartford