Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only 68 years unexpired on my lease in Kelvedon. I now wish to get lease extension but my landlord is missing. What are my options?

On the basis that 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 enable the lease to be lengthened by the magistrate. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you have made all reasonable attempts to track down the lessor. For most situations an enquiry agent would be useful to try and locate and to produce an expert document which can be accepted by the court as proof that the landlord can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a solicitor both on investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Kelvedon.

I am attracted to a couple of apartments in Kelvedon both have about forty five years remaining on the leases. Do I need to be concerned?

A lease is a legal document that entitles you to use the premises for a prescribed time frame. As a lease gets shorter the saleability of the lease deteriorate and it becomes more costly to acquire a lease extension. For this reason it is advisable to increase the term of the lease. Sometimes it is difficult to sell a property with a short lease because mortgage companies less inclined to grant a loan on such properties. Lease enfranchisement can be a difficult process. We recommend you get professional help from a solicitor and surveyor with experience in this area

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

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. Strange as it may seem, 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).

I am a negotiator for a busy estate agency in Kelvedon where we see a few leasehold sales jeopardised due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given inconsistent advice from local Kelvedon conveyancing firms. Please can you clarify whether the vendor of a flat can initiate 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. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser 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 needs to be completed prior to, or at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.

Alternatively, it may be possible 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.

In relation to leasehold conveyancing in Kelvedon what are the most common lease defects?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Kelvedon. All leases are individual and legal mistakes in the legal wording can result in certain sections are not included. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:

• A provision to repair to or maintain elements of the premises
• 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 problems when trying to sell a property as they can affect a potential buyer’s ability to obtain a mortgage. Nationwide Building Society, The Mortgage Works, and Bank of Ireland all have very detailed conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is defective they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the purchaser to pull out.

Leasehold Conveyancing in Kelvedon - Examples of Queries before Purchasing

The majority of Kelvedon leasehold apartments will have a service charge for the upkeep of the block levied by the landlord. Where you buy the flat you will have to meet this charge, usually in instalments accross the year. This may be anything from a few hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for buildings with lifts and large communal grounds. There will also be a ground rent for you to pay yearly, this is usually not a exorbitant sum, say around £25-£75 but you should to enquire it because on occasion it could be many hundreds of pounds. What is the yearly service fee and ground rent? It would be prudent to discover if there is anything that is prohibited in the lease. By way of example it is reasonably common in Kelvedon leases that pets are not allowed in in a block in Kelvedon. If you like the apartmentin Kelvedon yet your dog is not allowed to move with you then you will be faced hard determination.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Kelvedon