My wife and I purchased a leasehold flat in Haddenham. Conveyancing and Nationwide Building Society mortgage are in place. A letter has just been received from someone saying they have taken over the reversionary interest in the property. Attached was a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1997. The conveyancing practitioner in Haddenham who previously acted has now retired.Any advice?

The first thing you should do is make enquiries of the Land Registry to make sure that the individual claiming to own the freehold is in fact the new freeholder. You do not need to instruct a Haddenham conveyancing firm to do this as it can be done on-line for a few pound. You should note that in any event, even if this is the rightful freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 no more than 6 years of rent can be collected.

Last month I purchased a leasehold house in Haddenham. Do I have any liability for service charges for periods before my ownership?

In a situation where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous lessee 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 am a negotiator for a reputable estate agency in Haddenham where we have witnessed a number of flat sales put at risk due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given conflicting advice from local Haddenham conveyancing firms. Can you shed some light as to whether the vendor of a flat can commence the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

As long as 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 can avoid having to wait 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed before, or at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.

Alternatively, it may be possible 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.

If all goes to plan we aim to complete the sale of our £ 150000 garden flat in Haddenham in six days. The management company has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and 3 years statements of service charge. Is the landlord entitled to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in Haddenham?

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

• Addressing pre-contract questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Haddenham
• 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 Haddenham leasehold premises is £350. For Haddenham 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 provide the information.

When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in Haddenham what are the most common lease problems?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Haddenham. All leases are unique and legal mistakes in the legal wording 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 parts of the property
• Insurance obligations
• 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

A defective lease can cause issues when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. HSBC Bank, Skipton Building Society, and Aldermore all have express requirements when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is problematic they may refuse to grant the mortgage, forcing the purchaser to withdraw.

Haddenham Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - A selection of Queries before Purchasing

The answer will be useful as a) areas can cause problems in the building as the common areas may begin to deteriorate where maintenance remain unpaid b) if the tenants have an issue with the managing agents you will need to know about it Please note if it is fewer than 80 years it will have adverse implications on the value of the apartment. Check with your bank that they are content with the length of the lease. A short lease means that you will most likely require a lease extension at some point and it is worth discovering what this will be. Remember, in most cases you will need to own the property for two years before you are legally able to carry out a lease extension. The prefered form of lease structure is where the freehold reversion is in the ownership of the leaseholders. In this arrangement the tenants enjoy control and even though a managing agent is frequently employed if it is larger than a house conversion, the managing agent employed by the leaseholders.