There are only Fifty years left on my flat in Ferryhill. I now wish to extend my lease but my landlord is absent. What should I do?

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 magistrate. You will be obliged to prove that you have used your best endeavours to find the lessor. In some cases a specialist would be helpful to carry out a search 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 property lawyer in relation to investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court overseeing Ferryhill.

I am tempted by the attractive purchase price for a two apartments in Ferryhill which have approximately forty five years left on the leases. should I be concerned?

There is no doubt about it. A leasehold flat in Ferryhill is a deteriorating asset as a result of the reducing lease term. The nearer the lease gets to its expiry date, the more it adversely affects the marketability of the property. For most purchasers and lenders, leases with less than eighty years become less and less attractive. 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 premises 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 Ferryhill 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 You may find he or she is happy to negotiate informally and willing to consider your offer straight off, without having to involve anyone else. This will save you time and money and it could help you reach a lower price on the lease. 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.

I am a negotiator for a reputable estate agency in Ferryhill where we see a number of flat sales derailed as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given inconsistent advice from local Ferryhill conveyancing solicitors. Could you shed some light as to whether the owner of a flat can start the lease extension formalities for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

Provided that 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 buyer need not have 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 at the same time as 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.

Do you have any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Ferryhill from the perspective of speeding up the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Ferryhill can be bypassed where you get in touch lawyers as soon as you market your property and ask them to put together the leasehold information which will be required by the buyers lawyers.
• Some Ferryhill leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this applies to your lease, you should notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers obtain bank and professional references. Any bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is financially capable of paying the yearly 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 lawyers.

What makes a Ferryhill lease unmortgageable?

Leasehold conveyancing in Ferryhill is not unique. All leases is drafted differently and legal mistakes in the legal wording can sometimes mean that certain clauses are not included. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain elements of the building
• A duty to insure the building
• A provision for the recovery of money spent for the benefit of another party.
• Maintenance charge proportions which don’t add up to the correct percentage

You may encounter difficulties when selling your property if you have a defective lease primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. HSBC Bank, Bank of Scotland, and Platform Home Loans Ltd 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 purchaser to pull out.

I purchased a studio flat in Ferryhill, conveyancing having been completed half a dozen years ago. How much will my lease extension cost? Comparable flats in Ferryhill with a long lease are worth £220,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £50 levied per year. The lease finishes on 21st October 2087

With only 62 years unexpired the likely cost is going to range between £18,100 and £20,800 as well as costs.

The figure that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to advice on the actual costs without more comprehensive due diligence. You should not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt other issues that need to be taken into account and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not move forward based on this information before getting professional advice.

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Lease Extensions in Ferryhill