My husband and I may need to let out our Ilkeston ground floor flat temporarily due to a career opportunity. We instructed a Ilkeston conveyancing practice in 2004 but they have since shut and we did not think at the time seek any advice as to whether the lease allows us to sublet. How do we find out?

Notwithstanding that your last Ilkeston conveyancing lawyer is no longer available you can review your lease to check if it allows you to sublet the premises. The accepted inference is that if the lease is silent, subletting is allowed. Quite often there is a prerequisite that you must obtain consent from your landlord or some other party before subletting. This means you not allowed to sublet without first obtaining permission. Such consent must not not be unreasonably turned down. If the lease does not allow you to sublet you should ask your landlord if they are willing to waive this restriction.

Back In 2007, I bought a leasehold flat in Ilkeston. Conveyancing and Barclays mortgage are in place. 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 Ilkeston who previously acted has long since retired.What should I do?

The first thing you should do is make enquiries of the Land Registry to make sure that the individual purporting to own the freehold is indeed the registered owner of the freehold reversion. There is no need to incur the fees of a Ilkeston conveyancing lawyer to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for a few pound. Rest assured that regardless, even if this is the rightful freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 no more than 6 years of rent can be collected.

I am looking at a two flats in Ilkeston which have about fifty years unexpired on the lease term. Should I regard a short lease as a deal breaker?

There is no doubt about it. A leasehold flat in Ilkeston is a deteriorating asset as a result of the reducing lease term. The closer the lease gets to its expiry date, the more it reduces the value of the premises. The majority of purchasers and lenders, leases with less than eighty years become less and less marketable. On a more upbeat note, leaseholders can extend their leases by serving a Section 42 Notice. One stipulation is that they must have owned the premises for two years (unlike a Section 13 notice for purchasing the freehold, when leaseholders can participate from day one of ownership). When successful, they will have the right to an extension of 90 years to the current term and ground rent is effectively reduced to zero. Before moving forward with a purchase of premises with a short lease term remaining you should talk to a solicitor specialising in lease extensions and leasehold enfranchisement. We are are happy to put you in touch with Ilkeston conveyancing experts who will explain the options available to you during an initial telephone conversation free of charge. A more straightforward and quicker method of extending would be to contact your landlord directly and sound him out on the prospect of extending the lease They may agree to a smaller lump sum and an increase in the ground rent, but to shorter extension terms in return. You need to ensure that any new terms represent good long-term value compared with the standard benefits of the Section 42 Notice and that onerous clauses are not inserted into any redrafting of the lease.

I've recently bought a leasehold property in Ilkeston. Do I have any liability for service charges for periods before my ownership?

In a situation where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous lessee 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. It is an essential part 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).

I am employed by a long established estate agency in Ilkeston where we see a few flat sales derailed as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given conflicting advice from local Ilkeston conveyancing firms. Can you clarify whether the seller of a flat can commence 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 commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means 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 needs to be completed prior to, 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.

Ilkeston Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - Sample of Queries before Purchasing

What is the name of the managing agents? How is the lease structured? What prohibitions exist in the Ilkeston Lease?

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Ilkeston