My fiance and I may need to rent out our East Dean basement flat for a while due to taking a sabbatical. We used a East Dean conveyancing firm in 2002 but they have closed and we did not have the foresight to get any advice as to whether the lease prohibits the subletting of the flat. How do we find out?

A lease governs the relationship between the freeholder and you the leaseholder; in particular, it will set out if subletting is banned, or permitted but only subject to certain caveats. The rule is that if the lease contains no expres ban or restriction, subletting is allowed. The majority of leases in East Dean do not prevent strict prohibition on subletting – such a provision would adversely affect the market value the flat. Instead, there is usually simply a requirement that the owner notifies the freeholder, possibly sending a duplicate of the tenancy agreement.

Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Sixty One years remaining on my flat in East Dean. I am keen to get lease extension but my freeholder is can not be found. 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 an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will mean that your lease can be lengthened by the Court. However, you will be required to prove that you or your lawyers have done all that could be expected to locate the landlord. On the whole an enquiry agent would be helpful to conduct investigations and prepare a report which can be accepted by the court as evidence that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a solicitor in relation to proving the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court overseeing East Dean.

Due to sign contracts shortly on a leasehold property in East Dean. Conveyancing solicitors inform me that they are sending me a report tomorrow. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

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

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

Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my basement flat in East Dean.Conveyancing has not commenced but I have just received a yearly service charge demand – Do I pay up?

It best that you 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 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 a negotiator for a long established estate agent office in East Dean where we have witnessed a few leasehold sales put at risk due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given contradictory information from local East Dean conveyancing solicitors. Could you confirm whether the vendor of a flat can initiate the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

As long as the seller has owned the lease 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 wait 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done before, or simultaneously with completion of the sale.

An alternative approach is to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord 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.

East Dean Leasehold Conveyancing - A selection of Queries before Purchasing

Be sure to discover if there is anything that is prohibited in the lease. By way of example plenty of leases prohibit pets being permitted in in a block in East Dean. If you like the propertyin East Dean yet your cat can’t move with you then you have a very difficult determination. How many of the leaseholders are in arrears for their service charge payments? The answer will be helpful as a) areas could cause problems in the building as the communal areas may begin to deteriorate if repairs are not paid for b) if the tenants have a dispute with the managing agents you will wish to have all the details

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in East Dean