My wife and I may need to let out our Hazlemere 1st floor flat for a while due to a new job. We instructed a Hazlemere conveyancing firm in 2001 but they have closed and we did not have the foresight to get any advice as to whether the lease prohibits the subletting of the flat. How do we find out?

A lease governs relations between the freeholder and you the leaseholder; specifically, it will set out if subletting is not allowed, or permitted but only subject to certain caveats. The accepted inference is that if the lease contains no specific ban or restriction, subletting is allowed. Most leases in Hazlemere do not prevent an absolute prevention of subletting – such a clause would undoubtedly devalue the flat. Instead, there is usually a basic requirement that the owner notifies the freeholder, possibly sending a duplicate of the tenancy agreement.

Last month I purchased a leasehold flat in Hazlemere. Do I have any liability for service charges for periods before completion of my purchase?

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 long established estate agency in Hazlemere where we see a number of flat sales jeopardised as a result of short leases. I have been given contradictory information from local Hazlemere conveyancing solicitors. Please can you clarify whether the vendor of a flat can commence 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. This means that the buyer need not have 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 buyer.

Do you have any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Hazlemere from the perspective of expediting the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Hazlemere can be avoided where you appoint lawyers as soon as you market your property and request that they start to put together the leasehold information needed by the buyers lawyers.
• Many landlords or managing agents in Hazlemere levy fees for supplying management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should discover the actual amount of the charges. The management pack sought as soon as you have a buyer, thus accelerating the process. The average time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most common reason for frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Hazlemere.

If you have carried out any alterations to the property would they have required Landlord’s permission? Have you, for example installed wooden flooring? Hazlemere leases often stipulate that internal structural changes or addition of wooden flooring require a licence from the Landlord acquiescing to such changes. Should you dont have the paperwork in place you should not communicate with the landlord without contacting your lawyer before hand.

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 purchasers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a flat where there is an ongoing dispute. You may need to swallow your pride and 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 will still have to reveal particulars of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is clearly preferable to present the dispute as over as opposed to unresolved.

You may think that you are aware of the number of years remaining on your lease but you should double-check via your conveyancers. A purchaser's lawyer will be unlikely to recommend their client to to exchange contracts if the remaining number of years is under 80 years. It is therefore important at an early stage that you identify whether the lease term requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your premises on the market for sale.

Completion in due on our sale of a £125000 flat in Hazlemere next Monday . The managing agents has quoted £348 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and previous years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge exorbitant fees for a flat conveyance in Hazlemere?

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

• Answering conveyancing due diligence questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Hazlemere
• 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 Hazlemere leasehold premises is £350. For Hazlemere 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.

Hazlemere Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - A selection of Queries Prior to buying

This question is helpful as a) areas may cause problems for the block as the common areas may start to deteriorate if services are not paid for b) if the leaseholders have an issue with the running of the building you will wish to have all the details Most Hazlemere leasehold properties will have a service bill for the upkeep of the building set on behalf of the management company. If you purchase the flat you will have to meet this charge, normally in instalments during the year. This may be anything from a few hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for bigger purpose-built blocks. There will also be a ground rent for you to pay yearly, ordinarily this is not a significant figure, say approximately £50-£100 but you need to enquire it because on occasion it can be many hundreds of pounds. The prefered form of lease structure is a share of the freehold. In this scenario the lessees have control and although a managing agent is often retained where it is bigger than a house conversion, the managing agent is directed by the tenants.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Hazlemere