Planning to complete next month on a studio apartment in Hailsham. Conveyancing solicitors have said that they will have a report out to me next week. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

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

• How long the lease is You should be advised as what happens when the lease expires, and aware of the importance of not letting the lease term falling below eighty years
• The total extent of the property. This will be the apartment itself but might include a roof space or cellar if appropriate.
• Are pets allowed in the flat?
• An explanation as to the provision in the lease to pay service charges - with regard to both the building, and the more general rights a leaseholder has
• Whether your lease has a provision for a sinking fund?
• Changes to the flat (alterations and additions)
• What the implications are if you breach a clause of your lease?

My wife and I purchased a leasehold flat in Hailsham. Conveyancing and Alliance & Leicester mortgage organised. I have received a letter from someone claiming to own the freehold. It included a ground rent demand for rent dating back to 1998. The conveyancing solicitor in Hailsham who acted for me is not around.What should I do?

The first thing you should do is make enquiries of HMLR to make sure that the individual purporting to own the freehold is in fact the registered owner of the freehold reversion. There is no need to incur the fees of a Hailsham conveyancing lawyer to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for less than a fiver. Rest assured that in any event, even if this is the rightful freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

Last month I purchased a leasehold house in Hailsham. 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 owner and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. However, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. A critical element of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to be sure 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 employed by a busy estate agent office in Hailsham where we have experienced a few flat sales put at risk as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given conflicting advice from local Hailsham conveyancing firms. Can 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. 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 has to be done before, or simultaneously with 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 buyer.

What makes a Hailsham lease problematic?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Hailsham. Most leases is drafted differently and legal mistakes in the legal wording can result in 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 parts of the property
• A duty to insure the building
• Clauses dealing with recovering service charges for expenditure on the building or common parts.
• Service charge per centages that don't add up correctly leaving a shortfall

A defective lease can cause problems when trying to sell a property as they can affect a potential buyer’s ability to obtain a mortgage. Accord Mortgages Ltd, Bank of Scotland, and TSB all have very detailed requirements 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.

I am the registered owner of a 2 bed flat in Hailsham, conveyancing having been completed half a dozen years ago. Can you give me give me an indication of the likely cost of a lease extension? Corresponding properties in Hailsham with over 90 years remaining are worth £205,000. The ground rent is £65 invoiced every year. The lease finishes on 21st October 2098

You have 72 years remaining on your lease we estimate the price of your lease extension to be between £10,500 and £12,000 as well as plus your own and the landlord's "reasonable" professional fees.

The figure above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to supply a more accurate figure without more detailed investigations. You should not use this information in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be other concerns that need to be considered and clearly you should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you move forward based on this information before getting professional advice.