I only have Fifty years remaining on my lease in Huntingdon. I am keen to extend my lease but my landlord is absent. What are my options?

If you qualify, 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 extended by the magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you have done all that could be expected to find the lessor. On the whole an enquiry agent should be useful to carry out a search and prepare a report which can be used as evidence that the freeholder can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer both on devolving into the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court overseeing Huntingdon.

My wife and I purchased a leasehold house in Huntingdon. Conveyancing and Britannia mortgage went though with no issue. A letter has just been received from someone saying they have taken over the reversionary interest in the property. It included a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1994. The conveyancing practitioner in Huntingdon who acted for me is not around.What should I do?

First contact HMLR to be sure that the individual claiming to own the freehold is indeed the new freeholder. It is not necessary to instruct a Huntingdon conveyancing solicitor to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for a few pound. Rest assured that in any event, even if this is the legitimate freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

Last month I purchased a leasehold house in Huntingdon. Am I liable to pay service charges relating to a period prior to my ownership?

In a situation where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous owner and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. However, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. A critical element of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to ensure 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).

Our conveyancer has advised that he intends to complete and exchange simultaneously on the disposal of our £350000 flat in Huntingdon on Friday in a week. The freeholder has quoted £300 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and previous years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge an administration fee for a flat conveyance in Huntingdon?

For the majority of leasehold sales in Huntingdon conveyancing will involve, queries regarding 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 Huntingdon
• Supplying insurance information
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your solicitor will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Huntingdon leasehold premises is £350. For Huntingdon 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 obliged to provide the information.

In relation to leasehold conveyancing in Huntingdon what are the most frequent lease defects?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Huntingdon. All leases are individual and drafting errors can result in certain clauses are erroneous. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the building
• Insurance obligations
• Clauses dealing with recovering service charges for expenditure on the building or common parts.
• Maintenance charge proportions which don’t add up to the correct percentage

A defective lease will likely cause issues when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Lloyds TSB Bank, Barnsley Building Society, and Platform Home Loans Ltd all have very detailed requirements when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease does not cover certain provisions they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the buyer to pull out.

Huntingdon Leasehold Conveyancing - A selection of Questions you should consider Prior to Purchasing

Is anyone aware of any major works in the near future that will likely add a premium to the service fees? Best to be warned if changing the roof or some other major work is due shortly to be shared between the leaseholders and will dramatically increase the the service fees or necessitate a specific invoice. Is the freehold reversion owned collectively by the leaseholders?

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Huntingdon