I am on look out for some leasehold conveyancing in Barnes Cray. Before I get started I require certainty as to the number of years remaining on the lease.

If the lease is recorded at the land registry - and almost all are in Barnes Cray - then the leasehold title will always include the basic details of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties. From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer and lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title.For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.

Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only 68 years left on my lease in Barnes Cray. I now want to get lease extension but my landlord is absent. What options are available to me?

If 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 enable the lease to be extended by the magistrate. You will be obliged to prove that you have made all reasonable attempts to find the landlord. For most situations a specialist may be helpful to conduct investigations and to produce an expert document which can be used as evidence that the landlord can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a property lawyer both on investigating the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court covering Barnes Cray.

I've recently bought a leasehold flat in Barnes Cray. Do I have any liability for service charges relating to a period prior to completion of my purchase?

In a situation 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. Strange as it may seem, 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 busy estate agency in Barnes Cray where we see a few flat sales jeopardised as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received contradictory information from local Barnes Cray conveyancing firms. Can you shed some light as to whether the owner of a flat can start the lease extension process for the buyer?

As long as the seller has been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the buyer need not have to sit tight for 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done 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.

I own a two-bedroom flat in Barnes Cray. Given that I can not reach agreement with the landlord, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal determine the premium due for the purchase of the freehold?

Absolutely. We are happy to put you in touch with a Barnes Cray conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Lease Extension decision for a Barnes Cray property 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.

When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in Barnes Cray what are the most frequent lease problems?

Leasehold conveyancing in Barnes Cray is not unique. Most leases are individual and legal mistakes in the legal wording can result in certain sections are missing. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the property
• 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

You will have 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. Nationwide Building Society, Norwich and Peterborough Building Society, and Barclays Direct 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, forcing the buyer to pull out.