I only have 62 years remaining on my flat in Holmfirth. I now want to extend my lease but my landlord is can not be found. What should I do?

On the basis that you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will mean that your lease can be extended by the Court. You will be obliged to prove that you or your lawyers have done all that could be expected to track down the landlord. On the whole an enquiry agent would be helpful to carry out a search and prepare a report which can be accepted by the court as evidence that the landlord is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a solicitor in relation to proving the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Holmfirth.

Planning to complete next month on a basement flat in Holmfirth. Conveyancing lawyers assured me that they are sending me a report on Monday. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

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

• Does the lease require carpeting throughout thus preventing wood flooring?
• Does the lease prevent you from letting out the property, or working from home
• You should be told what counts as a Nuisance in the lease
• Whether your lease has a provision for a sinking fund?
• Changes to the flat (alterations and additions)
• I don't know whether the lease allows me to alter or improve anything in the flat - you should know whether it applies to all alterations or just structural alteration, and whether consent is required
• Responsibility for repairing the window frames

My wife and I purchased a leasehold house in Holmfirth. Conveyancing and The Royal Bank of Scotland mortgage went though with no issue. I have received a letter from someone saying they have taken over the freehold. It included a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1997. The conveyancing practitioner in Holmfirth who previously acted has long since retired.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 indeed the registered owner of the freehold reversion. You do not need to instruct a Holmfirth conveyancing firm to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for £3. You should note that in any event, even if this is the rightful landlord, under the Limitation Act 1980 no more than 6 years of rent can be collected.

I am employed by a long established estate agent office in Holmfirth where we have witnessed a number of leasehold sales derailed due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received contradictory information from local Holmfirth conveyancing firms. Please can you clarify whether the seller of a flat can instigate 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. 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.

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Holmfirth from the point of view of saving time on the sale process?

• Much of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Holmfirth can be bypassed where you instruct lawyers the minute you market your property and ask them to collate the leasehold information needed by the purchasers’ conveyancers.
• A minority of Holmfirth leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this is the case, you should notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers put in hand bank and professional references. Any bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are able to meet the annual service charge and the actual amount of the service charge should be quoted in the bank’s letter. You will therefore need to provide your estate agents with the service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the purchasers or their solicitors.
• If you have had conflict with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are settled before the property is put on the market. The buyers and their solicitors will be warry about purchasing a flat where a dispute is unsettled. You may have to bite the bullet and pay any arrears of service charge or resolve 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 are still duty bound to disclose details of the dispute to the buyers, but it is better to reveal the dispute as historic as opposed to unsettled.
• If you are supposed to have a share in the freehold, you should make sure that you hold the original share certificate. Obtaining a re-issued share certificate is often a lengthy formality and delays many a Holmfirth conveyancing transaction. Where a new share certificate is required, do contact the company officers or managing agents (where relevant) for this as soon as possible.
• You may think that you are aware of the number of years remaining on your lease but it would be wise to verify this by asking your lawyers. A buyer’s lawyer will not be happy to advise their client to proceed with the purchase of a leasehold property the remaining number of years is less than 80 years. It is therefore important at an early stage that you consider whether the lease for your property needs extending. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your home on the market for sale.

I bought a 1 bedroom flat in Holmfirth, conveyancing was carried out in 1998. Can you please calculate a probable premium for a statutory lease extension? Similar properties in Holmfirth with over 90 years remaining are worth £227,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £55 per annum. The lease expires on 21st October 2091

With only 65 years unexpired we estimate the premium for your lease extension to be between £17,100 and £19,800 plus legals.

The suggested premium range above a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we are not able to supply a more accurate figure in the absence of detailed investigations. You should not use this information in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be other issues that need to be taken into account and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you take any other action based on this information without first getting professional advice.