Top Five Questions relating to Abbey Wood leasehold conveyancing
I only have 68 years remaining on my lease in Abbey Wood. I am keen to get lease extension but my landlord is absent. What should I do?
On the basis that you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply 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 Court. However, you will be required to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have done all that could be expected to track down the landlord. In some cases an enquiry agent may be useful to carry out a search and to produce an expert document to be used as proof that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer both on devolving into the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court covering Abbey Wood.
I am hoping to sign contracts shortly on a garden flat in Abbey Wood. Conveyancing lawyers inform me that they are sending me a report tomorrow. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?
The report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Abbey Wood should include some of the following:
- You should be told what constitutes a Nuisance in the lease
Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my 2 bed apartment in Abbey Wood.Conveyancing lawyers have not yet been instructed but I have just had a half-yearly maintenance charge invoice – Do I pay up?
The sensible thing to do is discharge 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 managing agents 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.
Last month I purchased a leasehold property in Abbey Wood. Am I liable to pay service charges relating to a period prior to my ownership?
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 sale of our £450000 garden flat in Abbey Wood on Thursday in a week. The landlords agents has quoted £384 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and 3 years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge exorbitant fees for a leasehold conveyance in Abbey Wood?
Abbey Wood conveyancing on leasehold maisonettes often necessitates the purchaser’s conveyancer sending questions for the landlord to answer. Although the landlord is under no legal obligation to respond to these enquiries most will be willing to assist. They are at liberty charge a reasonable charge for answering questions or supplying documentation. There is no upper cap for such fees. The average fee for the information that you are referring to is over three hundred pounds, in some situations it exceeds £800. The administration charge levied by the landlord must be accompanied by a synopsis of entitlements and obligations in relation to administration fees, without which the charge is not strictly payable. Reality however dictates that one has no option but to pay whatever is demanded should you wish to exchange contracts with the buyer.
Having spent years of correspondence we are unable to agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Abbey Wood. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?
if there is a missing landlord or if there is disagreement about the premium for a lease extension, under the relevant legislation it is possible to make an application to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal to assess the price payable.
An example of a Lease Extension decision for a Abbey Wood flat is Various @ Colombus Square in January 2012. the Tribunal calculated the premiums to be paid for new leases for each of the flats in Mariners Walk to be £3822 and the premium to be paid for the new lease of 2 Knights Court to be £4439. This case affected 13 flats. The the unexpired residue of the current lease was 76 years.
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