I have recently realised that I have 62 years remaining on my lease in Ingleby Barwick. I now wish to get lease extension but my landlord is can not be found. What options are available to me?

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 mean that your lease can be lengthened by the magistrate. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you have used your best endeavours to find the freeholder. In some cases a specialist would be useful to carry out a search and prepare an expert document to be accepted by the court as proof 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 covering Ingleby Barwick.

Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my ground floor apartment in Ingleby Barwick.Conveyancing is yet to be initiated but I have just received a quarterly maintenance charge demand – what should I do?

The sensible thing to do is clear the service charge 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 unless 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 am employed by a long established estate agent office in Ingleby Barwick where we see a number of flat sales jeopardised due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received contradictory information from local Ingleby Barwick conveyancing solicitors. Please can you confirm whether the owner of a flat can initiate the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

As long as 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. This means that the buyer need not have to sit tight for 2 years to extend their lease. 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 purchaser.

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Ingleby Barwick from the point of view of expediting the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Ingleby Barwick can be avoided if you get in touch lawyers the minute you market your property and ask them to put together the leasehold documentation needed by the purchasers’ solicitors.
• In the event that you altered the property did you need the Landlord’s consent? In particular have you laid down wooden flooring? Most leases in Ingleby Barwick state that internal structural alterations or laying down wooden flooring require a licence issued by the Landlord approving such works. Should you fail to have the paperwork to hand you should not contact the landlord without contacting your lawyer before hand.

A minority of Ingleby Barwick leases require Landlord’s consent to the sale and approval of the buyers. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers put in hand financial (bank) and professional references. The bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is able to meet the yearly service charge and the actual amount of the service charge should be quoted in the bank’s letter. You will therefore need to provide your estate agents with the service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their lawyers.

If you hold a share in a the freehold, you should make sure that you have the original share certificate. Organising a new share certificate can be a time consuming process and slows down many a Ingleby Barwick conveyancing deal. If a duplicate share certificate is required, you should approach the company officers or managing agents (if relevant) for this as soon as possible.

You believe that you know the number of years left on your lease but you should double-check via your lawyers. A purchaser's conveyancer will not be happy to advise their client to proceed with the purchase of a leasehold property the lease term is under 75 years. In the circumstances it is important at an as soon as possible that you consider whether the lease requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your property on the market for sale.

Our conveyancer has advised that he intends to complete and exchange simultaneously on our sale of a £375000 maisonette in Ingleby Barwick next Thursday . The management company has quoted £384 for Certificate of Compliance, building insurance schedule and previous years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge exorbitant fees for a leasehold conveyance in Ingleby Barwick?

Ingleby Barwick conveyancing on leasehold flats nine out of ten times results in administration charges levied by management companies :

• Answering conveyancing due diligence enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Ingleby Barwick
• 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 solicitor will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Ingleby Barwick leasehold premises is £350. For Ingleby Barwick 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 am the registered owner of a 1 bedroom flat in Ingleby Barwick, conveyancing having been completed in 1999. Can you work out an approximate cost of a lease extension? Similar properties in Ingleby Barwick with over 90 years remaining are worth £267,000. The ground rent is £50 per annum. The lease ends on 21st October 2077

With 56 years left to run the likely cost is going to span between £26,600 and £30,800 as well as costs.

The suggested premium range that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we cannot give you a more accurate figure in the absence of comprehensive investigations. Do not use this information in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There may be other concerns that need to be taken into account and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not move forward based on this information before getting professional advice.

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Lease Extensions in Ingleby Barwick