Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Seventy years remaining on my flat in Euxton. I need to get lease extension but my landlord is can not be found. What should I do?

On the basis that you meet the appropriate requirements, 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 Court. However, you will be required to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have made all reasonable attempts to locate the lessor. For most situations a specialist may be helpful to try and locate and to produce an expert document to be used as proof that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a property lawyer in relation to investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Euxton.

I work for a reputable estate agent office in Euxton where we see a number of flat sales derailed as a result of short leases. I have been given contradictory information from local Euxton conveyancing solicitors. Could you clarify whether the vendor of a flat can start the lease extension process for the buyer?

Provided that 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 buyer can avoid having to sit tight for 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed before, or simultaneously with completion of the disposal of the property.

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.

Do you have any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Euxton with the intention of speeding up the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Euxton can be avoided where you appoint lawyers as soon as your agents start advertising the property and request that they start to collate the leasehold documentation which will be required by the buyers solicitors.
• If you have carried out any alterations to the property would they have required Landlord’s consent? Have you, for example installed wooden flooring? Most leases in Euxton state that internal structural alterations or addition of wooden flooring calls for a licence from the Landlord consenting to such alterations. Where you dont have the paperwork to hand do not communicate with the landlord without contacting your conveyancer first.

A minority of Euxton leases require Landlord’s consent to the sale and approval of the buyers. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers put in hand financial (bank) and professional references. The bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is financially capable of paying the annual service charge and the actual amount of the service charge should be quoted in the bank’s letter. You will therefore need to provide your estate agents with the service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their solicitors.

If you have had any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are settled prior to the flat being marketed. The purchasers and their solicitors will be nervous about purchasing a property where there is a current dispute. You will have to accept that you will have to pay any arrears of service charge or resolve 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 particulars of the dispute to the buyers, but it is clearly preferable to reveal the dispute as historic rather than unresolved.

You may think that you are aware of the number of years left on your lease but you should double-check by asking your conveyancers. A purchaser's lawyer will be unlikely to recommend their client to where the lease term is under 75 years. It is therefore important at an as soon as possible that you identify whether the lease requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your property on the market for sale.

Our conveyancer has advised that he intends to complete and exchange simultaneously on our sale of a £300000 maisonette in Euxton in nine days. The management company has quoted £312 for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and 3 years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge such fees for a leasehold conveyance in Euxton?

Euxton conveyancing on leasehold flats normally involves administration charges invoiced by managing agents :

• Answering pre-contract enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Euxton
• Copies of the building insurance and schedule
• 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 Euxton leasehold property is £350. For Euxton 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 supply answers.

Are there common problems that you encounter in leases for Euxton properties?

Leasehold conveyancing in Euxton is not unique. Most leases are individual and legal mistakes in the legal wording can sometimes mean that certain clauses are erroneous. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:

• A provision to repair to or maintain elements of the property
• 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

You will have a problem when selling your property if you have a defective lease primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Birmingham Midshires, Norwich and Peterborough Building Society, and Aldermore all have very detailed conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. Where a lender has been advised by their lawyers that the lease does not cover certain provisions they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the buyer to withdraw.

Euxton Leasehold Conveyancing - A selection of Questions you should ask Prior to buying

For most Euxton leaseholds the cost for major works tend not to be incorporated into the service charges, albeit that there some managing agents in Euxton obliged leasehold owners to contribute towards a reserve fund created for the specific purpose of establishing a fund for larger works. It would be sensible to discover as much as possible about the company managing the block as they can either make living at the property much easier or uncomfortable. As the proprietor of a leasehold property you are frequently in the clutches of the managing agents both financially and when it comes to daily issues like the upkeep of the common parts. Don't be shy to ask other tenants what they think of their service. Finally, be sure you know the dates that you are obliged pay the service charge to the managing agents and specifically how they are spending the funds. The prefered form of lease arrangement is where the freehold reversion is owned by the leaseholders. In this arrangement the lessees enjoy control and even though a managing agent is frequently employed if it is larger than a house conversion, the managing agent is directed by the tenants.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Euxton