Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Sixty One years left on my flat in Holton le Clay. I now wish to extend my lease but my freeholder is can not be found. What should I do?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for for permission to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be extended by the Court. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you have used your best endeavours to find the freeholder. On the whole a specialist would be useful to try and locate and to produce an expert document which can be used as evidence that the landlord can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer in relation to devolving into the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court covering Holton le Clay.

I am hoping to exchange soon on a leasehold property in Holton le Clay. Conveyancing lawyers inform me that they are sending me a report tomorrow. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

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

• Details of the parties to the lease, for example these could be the leaseholder (you), head lessor, landlord

Setting out your rights in respect of the communal areas in the building.E.G., does the lease grant a right of way over a path or hallways?

You need to be told what constitutes a Nuisance in the lease

Ground rent - how much and when you need to pay, and also know whether this will change in the future

You should have a good understanding of the insurance provisions

Changes to the flat (alterations and additions)

What the implications are if you breach a clause of your lease? For details of the information to be contained in your report on your leasehold property in Holton le Clay please enquire of your conveyancer in advance of your conveyancing in Holton le Clay

I am attracted to a two maisonettes in Holton le Clay which have approximately 50 years unexpired on the leases. Should I regard a short lease as a deal breaker?

There are plenty of short leases in Holton le Clay. The lease is a right to use the premises for a period of time. As a lease gets shorter the value of the lease decreases and it becomes more costly to acquire a lease extension. This is why it is advisable to increase the term of the lease. It is often difficult to sell a property with a short lease as mortgage lenders less inclined to grant a loan on such properties. Lease extension can be a difficult process. We recommend you get professional help from a solicitor and surveyor with experience in this area

I work for a long established estate agent office in Holton le Clay where we have witnessed a number of flat sales put at risk due to short leases. I have received contradictory information from local Holton le Clay conveyancing solicitors. Please can you shed some light as to whether the vendor of a flat can commence the lease extension process for the buyer?

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. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser can avoid having to sit tight for 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed prior to, or simultaneously with completion of the disposal of the property.

An alternative approach is to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord 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.

If all goes to plan we aim to complete the sale of our £250000 flat in Holton le Clay in just under a week. The landlords 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 leasehold conveyance in Holton le Clay?

Holton le Clay conveyancing on leasehold maisonettes nine out of ten times necessitates fees being levied by management companies :

• Addressing conveyancing due diligence enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Holton le Clay
• 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 Holton le Clay leasehold property is £350. For Holton le Clay 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 bought a 2 bed flat in Holton le Clay, conveyancing having been completed half a dozen years ago. Can you let me have an estimated range of the fair premium for a lease extension? Equivalent flats in Holton le Clay with over 90 years remaining are worth £229,000. The ground rent is £55 invoiced annually. The lease ends on 21st October 2103

With just 78 years unexpired we estimate the price of your lease extension to span between £9,500 and £11,000 as well as legals.

The suggested premium range above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to advice on a more accurate figure without more detailed due diligence. You should not use the figures 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. You should not move forward placing reliance on this information before getting professional advice.

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Lease Extensions in Holton le Clay