I own a leasehold house in Aldborough Hatch. Conveyancing and Coventry Building Society mortgage went though with no issue. A letter has just been received from someone claiming to own the freehold. It included a ground rent demand for rent dating back to 1991. The conveyancing solicitor in Aldborough Hatch who previously acted has now retired.Do I pay?

First contact the Land Registry to make sure that this person is indeed the registered owner of the freehold reversion. There is no need to instruct a Aldborough Hatch conveyancing solicitor to do this as it can be done on-line for a few pound. Rest assured that in any event, even if this is the legitimate freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 no more than 6 years of rent can be collected.

Last month I purchased a leasehold flat in Aldborough Hatch. Do I have any liability for service charges relating to a period prior to completion of my purchase?

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. It is an essential part of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to be sure 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 agent office in Aldborough Hatch where we see a number of flat sales put at risk as a result of short leases. I have been given contradictory information from local Aldborough Hatch conveyancing solicitors. Could you clarify whether the owner of a flat can commence the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

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 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.

All being well we will complete the sale of our £375000 apartment in Aldborough Hatch next Tuesday . The managing agents has quoted £300 for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and previous years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge exorbitant fees for a leasehold conveyance in Aldborough Hatch?

For most leasehold sales in Aldborough Hatch conveyancing will involve, queries regarding the management of a building inevitably needing to be answered directly by the freeholder or its agent, this includes :

• Addressing pre-contract questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Aldborough Hatch
• 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 conveyancer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Aldborough Hatch leasehold premises is £350. For Aldborough Hatch 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 supply the information.

After years of negotiations we simply can't agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Aldborough Hatch. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?

if there is a missing landlord or where there is dispute about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant statutes you can apply to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal to assess the sum to be paid.

An example of a Lease Extension case for a Aldborough Hatch property is 49 Aldborough Road South in July 2012. The Tribunal decided that the premium payable for the grant of the new lease was £13,925 This case related to 1 flat. The the unexpired term as at the valuation date was 61.36 years.

Are there common defects that you witness in leases for Aldborough Hatch properties?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Aldborough Hatch. All leases are individual and drafting errors can sometimes mean that certain sections are erroneous. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• A provision to repair to or maintain elements of the property
• A duty to insure the building
• 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

You could encounter difficulties when selling your property if you have a defective lease primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. HSBC Bank, The Mortgage Works, and Nottingham Building Society 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 problematic they may refuse to provide security, obliging the purchaser to pull out.