There are only 68 years left on my flat in Dolwyddelan. I need to extend my lease but my freeholder is absent. What options are available to me?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for for permission to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will mean that your lease can be extended by the Court. You will be obliged to prove that you have used your best endeavours to find the landlord. In some cases an enquiry agent may be helpful to try and locate and prepare an expert document which can be accepted by the court as proof that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a solicitor both on investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court covering Dolwyddelan.

Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my basement flat in Dolwyddelan.Conveyancing lawyers have not yet been instructed but I have just had 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 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 am attracted to a two apartments in Dolwyddelan both have in the region of 50 years left on the lease term. Will this present a problem?

There are no two ways about it. A leasehold flat in Dolwyddelan is a deteriorating asset as a result of the shortening lease. The nearer the lease gets to its expiry date, the more it reduces the value of the premises. For most buyers and lenders, leases with under 75 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 property 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 Dolwyddelan 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.

Can you provide any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Dolwyddelan from the point of view of speeding up the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Dolwyddelan can be avoided if you get in touch lawyers as soon as you market your property and ask them to collate the leasehold information which will be required by the purchasers’ conveyancers.
• The majority freeholders or Management Companies in Dolwyddelan levy fees for providing management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should find out the fee that they propose to charge. The management information can be applied for as soon as you have a buyer, thus accelerating the process. The typical amount of time it takes to obtain the necessary information is three weeks. It is the most common reason for delay in leasehold conveyancing in Dolwyddelan.
• If you have had conflict with your landlord or managing agents it is very important that these are settled before the property is put on the market. The purchasers and their solicitors will be warry about purchasing a property where there is an ongoing dispute. You will have to accept that you will have to pay any arrears of service charge or settle the dispute prior to completion of the sale. 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 details of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is clearly preferable to reveal the dispute as over rather than ongoing.
• If you are supposed to have a share in the freehold, you should make sure that you have the original share document. Organising a re-issued share certificate is often a time consuming process and frustrates many a Dolwyddelan home move. Where a reissued share certificate is necessary, you should approach the company director and secretary or managing agents (if applicable) for this at the earliest opportunity.
• You may think that you are aware of the number of years remaining on your lease but you should double-check via your conveyancers. A purchaser's conveyancer will not be happy to advise their client to to exchange contracts if the lease term is less than 80 years. In the circumstances it is important at an as soon as possible that you identify whether the lease term for your property needs extending. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your property on the market for sale.

Completion in due on our sale of a £ 325000 garden flat in Dolwyddelan next Tuesday . The landlords agents has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and previous years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a leasehold conveyance in Dolwyddelan?

For the majority of leasehold sales in Dolwyddelan 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 conveyancing due diligence enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Dolwyddelan
• Supplying insurance information
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your lawyer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Dolwyddelan leasehold property is £350. For Dolwyddelan 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 supply the information.

I am the registered owner of a split level flat in Dolwyddelan, conveyancing formalities finalised 2002. Can you shed any light on how much the price could be for a 90 year extension to my lease? Corresponding properties in Dolwyddelan with a long lease are worth £230,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £55 invoiced every year. The lease runs out on 21st October 2096

You have 70 years remaining on your lease we estimate the price of your lease extension to span between £10,500 and £12,000 as well as legals.

The figure that we have given is a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we are not able to advice on a more accurate figure without more detailed investigations. You should not use this information in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt additional issues that need to be taken into account and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not move forward placing reliance on this information before getting professional advice.