Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Seventy years left on my flat in Huddersfield. I need to extend my lease but my freeholder is can not be found. What are my options?

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 for permission to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will mean that your lease can be lengthened by the Court. You will be obliged to prove that you have used your best endeavours to find the lessor. On the whole an enquiry agent may be useful to try and locate and to produce an expert document which can be accepted by the court as evidence that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer in relation to devolving into the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Huddersfield.

Expecting to sign contracts shortly on a studio apartment in Huddersfield. Conveyancing lawyers inform me that they report fully next week. What should I be looking out for?

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

• The length of the lease term You should be advised as what happens when the lease expires, and aware of the importance of the 80 year mark
• Details of the parties to the lease, for example these could be the leaseholder (you), head lessor, freeholder
• Setting out your legal entitlements in relation to common areas in the block.By way of example, does the lease grant a right of way over an accessway or staircase?
• You should be told what counts as a Nuisance in the lease
• Whether the landlord has obligations to ensure rights of quiet enjoyment over your property and do you know what it means in practice?
• Responsibility for repairing the window frames
• What the implications are if you breach a clause of your lease?

I have just appointed agents to market my garden flat in Huddersfield.Conveyancing lawyers have not yet been instructed but I have just received a half-yearly maintenance charge invoice – what should I do?

Your conveyancing lawyer is likely to suggest that you should discharge 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. Having a clear account will assist your cause and will leave you no worse off financially.

Back In 2000, I bought a leasehold flat in Huddersfield. Conveyancing and Clydesdale mortgage went though with no issue. I have received a letter from someone claiming to own the freehold. Attached was a ground rent demand for rent dating back to 1993. The conveyancing practitioner in Huddersfield who acted for me is not around.What should I do?

The first thing you should do is contact the Land Registry to be sure that the individual claiming to own the freehold is in fact the registered owner of the freehold reversion. It is not necessary to incur the fees of a Huddersfield conveyancing firm to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for less than a fiver. Rest assured that regardless, even if this is the rightful landlord, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

I am employed by a busy estate agency in Huddersfield where we have experienced a number of leasehold sales derailed due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received contradictory information from local Huddersfield conveyancing firms. Please can you confirm whether the vendor of a flat can commence the lease extension process for the buyer?

Provided that the seller has been the owner 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 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.

Alternatively, it may be possible 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.

Leasehold Conveyancing in Huddersfield - A selection of Questions you should ask Prior to buying

Most Huddersfield leasehold flats will be liable to pay a service charge for the upkeep of the building levied by the management company. Where you purchase the apartment you will have to meet this liability, usually quarterly during the year. This may differ from a few hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for large purpose-built blocks. There will also be a ground rent for you to pay annual, this is usually not a significant amount, say approximately £50-£100 but you need to check as on occasion it can be many hundreds of pounds.