I only have Seventy years unexpired on my flat in East Riding Villages. I am keen to extend my lease but my freeholder is can not be found. What are my options?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application 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 magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you have made all reasonable attempts to track down the freeholder. In some cases a specialist may be useful to carry out a search and prepare a report which can be accepted by the court as proof that the landlord can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a solicitor in relation to investigating the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court overseeing East Riding Villages.

Due to complete next month on a ground floor flat in East Riding Villages. Conveyancing solicitors inform me that they will have a report out to me on Monday. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

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

• You should be sent a copy of the lease

Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my ground floor flat in East Riding Villages.Conveyancing lawyers have not yet been instructed but I have just received a quarterly maintenance charge invoice – Do I pay up?

Your conveyancing lawyer is likely to suggest that you should pay 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. Having a clear account will assist your cause and will leave you no worse off financially.

I am tempted by the attractive purchase price for a two apartments in East Riding Villages which have approximately fifty years unexpired on the leases. Do I need to be concerned?

There are plenty of short leases in East Riding Villages. The lease is a right to use the property for a prescribed time frame. As the lease shortens the saleability of the lease decreases and it becomes more costly to extend the lease. For this reason it is advisable to extend the lease term. Sometimes it is difficult to sell a property with a short lease because mortgage lenders may be reluctant to lend money on such properties. Lease enfranchisement can be a difficult process. We advise that you get professional assistance from a solicitor and surveyor with experience in this arena

I am a negotiator for a busy estate agency in East Riding Villages where we have experienced a number of leasehold sales jeopardised as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given contradictory information from local East Riding Villages conveyancing firms. Please can you shed some light as to whether the seller of a flat can instigate the lease extension process for the buyer?

Provided that the seller has been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser need not have to wait 2 years for a lease extension. 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 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.

I bought a 1st floor flat in East Riding Villages, conveyancing was carried out 2007. Can you let me have an estimated range of the fair premium for a lease extension? Equivalent flats in East Riding Villages with an extended lease are worth £266,000. The ground rent is £45 invoiced every year. The lease expires on 21st October 2104

With 79 years remaining on your lease the likely cost is going to span between £8,600 and £9,800 plus legals.

The suggested premium range that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to provide the actual costs in the absence of comprehensive due diligence. Do not use this information in tribunal or court proceedings. There may be other issues that need to be considered and clearly you should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you move forward based on this information without first seeking the advice of a professional.

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Lease Extensions in East Riding Villages