Having had my offer accepted I require leasehold conveyancing in Holmfirth. Before I get started I would like to find out the remaining lease term.

If the lease is registered - and most are in Holmfirth - then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties. From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer and lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title.For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.

I have recently realised that I have Sixty One years left on my lease in Holmfirth. I need to extend my lease but my landlord is missing. What should I do?

On the basis that you meet the appropriate requirements, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be granted an extra 90 years by the magistrate. However, you will be required to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to find the freeholder. For most situations an enquiry agent would be helpful to try and locate and to produce a report to be accepted by the court as evidence that the landlord is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a property lawyer both on devolving into the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Holmfirth.

Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my basement apartment in Holmfirth.Conveyancing lawyers have not yet been instructed but I have just had a quarterly maintenance charge invoice – what should I do?

It best that you clear the invoice as normal because all ground rent and service charges will be apportioned on completion, so you will be reimbursed by the buyer for the period running from after the completion date to the next payment date. Most management companies will not acknowledge the buyer until the service charges have been paid and are up to date so it is important for both buyer and seller for the seller to show that they are up to date. This will smooth the conveyancing process.

I work for a busy estate agency in Holmfirth where we see a few leasehold sales jeopardised as a result of short leases. I have been given conflicting advice from local Holmfirth conveyancing solicitors. Please can you clarify whether the vendor of a flat can initiate the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

As long as 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 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 disposal of the property.

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 disposal of our £ 400000 apartment in Holmfirth in just under a week. The management company has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and previous years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in Holmfirth?

Holmfirth conveyancing on leasehold flats normally results in fees being raised by managing agents :

• Answering pre-exchange questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Holmfirth
• 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 Holmfirth leasehold property is £350. For Holmfirth 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 answers.

I own a studio flat in Holmfirth, conveyancing formalities finalised half a dozen years ago. Can you please calculate a probable premium for a statutory lease extension? Comparable properties in Holmfirth with an extended lease are worth £222,000. The ground rent is £60 charged once a year. The lease runs out on 21st October 2086

With just 60 years unexpired we estimate the price of your lease extension to be between £20,000 and £23,000 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 cannot give you the actual costs in the absence of comprehensive investigations. You should not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt other concerns that need to be considered and clearly you should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. You should not take any other action based on this information before seeking the advice of a professional.