Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only 62 years unexpired on my lease in Hanslope. I need to get lease extension but my freeholder is can not be found. What options are available to me?

On the basis that you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application to the County Court for for permission to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will mean that your lease can be granted an extra 90 years by the magistrate. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you have done all that could be expected to find the landlord. For most situations an enquiry agent should be helpful to conduct investigations and to produce a report which can be used as proof that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer in relation to proving the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court covering Hanslope.

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

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. 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 reputable estate agency in Hanslope where we have experienced a few leasehold sales derailed as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given conflicting advice from local Hanslope conveyancing solicitors. Please can you clarify whether the seller of a flat can initiate the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

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. This means that the proposed purchaser need not have 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.

We expect to complete the sale of our £ 125000 garden flat in Hanslope next week. The landlords agents has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and previous years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in Hanslope?

Hanslope conveyancing on leasehold maisonettes typically results in fees being raised by management companies :

• Answering pre-exchange enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Hanslope
• Copies of the building insurance and schedule
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your conveyancer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Hanslope leasehold property is £350. For Hanslope 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 supply answers.

What makes a Hanslope lease defective?

Leasehold conveyancing in Hanslope is not unique. All leases are individual and legal mistakes in the legal wording can sometimes mean that certain provisions are erroneous. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the building
• 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 will likely cause problems when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. HSBC Bank, Coventry Building Society, 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 acquired a ground floor flat in Hanslope, conveyancing having been completed 2000. Can you work out an approximate cost of a lease extension? Corresponding flats in Hanslope with a long lease are worth £266,000. The ground rent is £60 levied per year. The lease finishes on 21st October 2089

With only 63 years left to run we estimate the price of your lease extension to range between £18,100 and £20,800 as well as professional fees.

The suggested premium range that we have given is a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we are not able to provide a more accurate figure in the absence of comprehensive investigations. You should not use this information in tribunal or court proceedings. There may be additional issues that need to be taken into account and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you take any other action based on this information before seeking the advice of a professional.