Looking forward to sign contracts shortly on a studio apartment in Great Baddow. Conveyancing lawyers assured me that they will have a report out to me within the next couple of days. What should I be looking out for?

The report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Great Baddow should include some of the following:

• You need to be told what constitutes a Nuisance in the lease

Ground rent - how much and when you need to pay, and also know whether this will change in the future

You should have a good understanding of the insurance provisions

Repair and maintenance of the flat

Whether the landlord has obligations to ensure rights of quiet enjoyment over your premises and do you know what it means in practice?

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

Responsibility for repairing the window frames For details of the information to be contained in your report on your leasehold property in Great Baddow please ask your lawyer in ahead of your conveyancing in Great Baddow

I own a leasehold flat in Great Baddow. Conveyancing and Barclays mortgage are in place. A letter has just been received from someone claiming to own the reversionary interest in the property. Attached was a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1996. The conveyancing practitioner in Great Baddow who acted for me is not around.Any advice?

The first thing you should do is make enquiries of the Land Registry to make sure that this person is in fact the registered owner of the freehold reversion. You do not need to instruct a Great Baddow conveyancing lawyer to do this as it can be done on-line for less than a fiver. You should note that in any event, even if this is the legitimate freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 no more than 6 years of rent can be collected.

I am looking at a couple of flats in Great Baddow both have approximately fifty years unexpired on the leases. Will this present a problem?

There are no two ways about it. A leasehold flat in Great Baddow is a deteriorating asset as a result of the shortening lease. The closer the lease gets to its expiry date, the more it adversely affects the value of the property. For most buyers and banks, 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 premises 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 property 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 Great Baddow 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 any new 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 work for a reputable estate agency in Great Baddow where we see a number of leasehold sales jeopardised due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received contradictory information from local Great Baddow conveyancing firms. Can you confirm whether the owner of a flat can initiate the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

As long as 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 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 prior to, or at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.

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 buyer.

All being well we will complete the sale of our £250000 apartment in Great Baddow next Friday . The management company has quoted £360 for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and previous years statements of service charge. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a flat conveyance in Great Baddow?

For most leasehold sales in Great Baddow conveyancing will involve, queries regarding the management of a building inevitably needing to be answered directly by the freeholder or its agent, this includes :

• Completing conveyancing due diligence questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Great Baddow
• Supplying insurance information
• 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 Great Baddow leasehold property is £350. For Great Baddow 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 provide answers.

I bought a garden flat in Great Baddow, conveyancing formalities finalised 7 years ago. Can you work out an approximate cost of a lease extension? Corresponding flats in Great Baddow with an extended lease are worth £256,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £45 levied per year. The lease ends on 21st October 2092

You have 69 years left to run the likely cost is going to be between £13,300 and £15,400 plus costs.

The suggested premium range that we have given is a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we cannot give you the actual costs in the absence of comprehensive due diligence. Do not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be additional issues that need to be taken into account and clearly you should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not take any other action placing reliance on this information before getting professional advice.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Great Baddow