I am hoping to complete next month on a garden flat in Fairwater. Conveyancing lawyers inform me that they will have a report out to me within the next couple of days. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

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

• You should receive a copy of the lease

Does the lease prohibit wood flooring?

You should have a good understanding of the insurance provisions

Changes to the flat (alterations and additions)

The landlord’s obligations to repair and maintain the building. It is important that you know who is responsible for the repair and maintenance of every part of the building

What you can do if a neighbour breach a clause of their lease?

What the implications are if you breach a clause of your lease? For details of the information to be contained in your report on your leasehold property in Fairwater please enquire of your solicitor in ahead of your conveyancing in Fairwater

I've recently bought a leasehold house in Fairwater. Am I liable to pay service charges for periods before my ownership?

In a situation where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous owner and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. Strange as it may seem, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. It is an essential part of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to ensure to have an up to date clear service charge receipt before completion of your purchase. If you have a mortgage this is likely to be a requirement of your lender.

If you purchase part way through an accounting year you may be liable for charges not yet demanded even if they relate to a period prior to your purchase. In such circumstances your conveyancer would normally arrange for the seller to set aside some money to cover their part of the period (usually called a service charge retention).

I work for a busy estate agency in Fairwater where we have witnessed a number of flat sales jeopardised as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received conflicting advice from local Fairwater conveyancing solicitors. Please can you clarify whether the vendor of a flat can start the lease extension formalities 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. This means that the proposed purchaser 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 sale.

Alternatively, it may be possible 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 purchaser.

Our conveyancer has advised that he intends to complete and exchange simultaneously on our sale of a £300000 garden flat in Fairwater next Monday . The management company has quoted £336 for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and previous years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a leasehold conveyance in Fairwater?

Fairwater conveyancing on leasehold flats nine out of ten times results in fees being raised by managing agents :

• Addressing pre-contract questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Fairwater
• 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 Fairwater leasehold premises is £350. For Fairwater 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.

When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in Fairwater what are the most frequent lease problems?

Leasehold conveyancing in Fairwater is not unique. Most leases are individual and drafting errors can sometimes mean that certain sections are wrong. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

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

A defective lease can cause issues when trying to sell a property as they can affect a potential buyer’s ability to obtain a mortgage. National Westminster Bank, Norwich and Peterborough Building Society, and Britannia all have very detailed conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease does not cover certain provisions they may refuse to grant the mortgage, forcing the buyer to withdraw.

Fairwater Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - Sample of Queries before Purchasing

This information is useful as a) areas can cause problems in the block as the common areas may start to deteriorate if services remain unpaid b) if the tenants have an issue with the running of the building you will need to know about it The prefered form of lease structure is where the freehold reversion is owned by the leaseholders. In this arrangement the lessees have control and even though a managing agent is often retained if the building is larger than a house conversion, the managing agent acts for the leaseholders themselves. How many years remain on the lease?

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Fairwater