Fixed-fee leasehold conveyancing in Great Baddow:

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When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in Great Baddow, you will need to instruct a conveyancing lawyer with leasehold experience. Whether your mortgage company is to be Halifax, Birmingham Midshires or NatWest be sure to choose a lawyer on their panel. Feel free to use our search tool

Frequently asked questions relating to Great Baddow leasehold conveyancing

I am on look out for some leasehold conveyancing in Great Baddow. Before I set the wheels in motion I require certainty as to the remaining lease term.

If the lease is recorded at the land registry - and most are in Great Baddow - then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties. From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer and lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title.For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.

I would like to sublet my leasehold apartment in Great Baddow. Conveyancing solicitor who did the purchase is retired - so can't ask him. Do I need to ask my freeholder for permission?

Even though your previous Great Baddow conveyancing lawyer is no longer around you can review your lease to check if it allows you to sublet the premises. The rule is that if the lease is non-specific, subletting is permitted. Quite often there is a prerequisite that you must obtain permission via your landlord or some other party in advance of subletting. This means that you cannot sublet in the absence of prior permission. The consent should not be unreasonably refused ore delayed. If your lease prohibits you from subletting the property you should ask your landlord if they are willing to waive this restriction.

I own a leasehold house in Great Baddow. Conveyancing and The Royal Bank of Scotland mortgage organised. A letter has just been received from someone saying they have taken over the freehold. Attached was a ground rent demand for rent dating back to 1993. The conveyancing solicitor in Great Baddow who acted for me is not around.What should I do?

First contact the Land Registry to make sure that this person is indeed the new freeholder. It is not necessary to instruct a Great Baddow conveyancing lawyer to do this as it can be done on-line for less than a fiver. Rest assured that regardless, even if this is the rightful landlord, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

I am employed by a busy estate agent office in Great Baddow where we see a few leasehold sales put at risk due to short leases. I have been given conflicting advice from local Great Baddow conveyancing firms. Could you shed some light as to whether the seller of a flat can instigate 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 kick-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 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 agree the lease extension with the freeholder 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 top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Great Baddow from the point of view of saving time on the sale process?

  • A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Great Baddow can be bypassed where you instruct lawyers the minute your agents start advertising the property and ask them to collate the leasehold information needed by the purchasers’ conveyancers.
  • If you have carried out any alterations to the residence would they have required Landlord’s consent? In particular have you installed wooden flooring? Great Baddow leases often stipulate that internal structural alterations or laying down wooden flooring require a licence issued by the Landlord acquiescing to such changes. Should you dont have the consents in place you should not contact the landlord without contacting your lawyer in the first instance.
  • A minority of Great Baddow leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers obtain 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 there is a history of any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is essential that these are resolved before the property is marketed. The buyers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a flat where there is an ongoing dispute. You will have to accept that you will have to discharge any arrears of service charge or settle the dispute prior to completion of the sale. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled prior to the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You are still duty bound to disclose details of the dispute to the buyers, but it is better to reveal the dispute as historic as opposed to unsettled.
  • If you hold a share in a the Management Company, you should make sure that you have the original share certificate. Arranging a new share certificate can be a time consuming formality and frustrates many a Great Baddow conveyancing transaction. Where a reissued share is needed, you should approach the company director and secretary or managing agents (if applicable) for this sooner rather than later.

    • I own a ground floor flat in Great Baddow, conveyancing having been completed 2000. Can you give me give me an indication of the likely cost of a lease extension? Equivalent properties in Great Baddow with a long lease are worth £245,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £60 per annum. The lease finishes on 21st October 2088

    With only 64 years left to run we estimate the price of your lease extension to span between £18,100 and £20,800 as well as professional fees.

    The figure above a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs in the absence of comprehensive investigations. Do not use this information in tribunal or court proceedings. There may be other issues that need to be taken into account and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not take any other action placing reliance on this information before getting professional advice.

    Other Topics

    Lease Extensions in Great Baddow