I am in need of some leasehold conveyancing in Beckenham. Before diving in I want to be sure as to the number of years remaining on the lease.

Assuming the lease is recorded at the land registry - and almost all are in Beckenham - 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 Seventy years unexpired on my flat in Beckenham. I now want to get lease extension but my freeholder is can not be found. What should I do?

If 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 mean that your lease can be lengthened by the Court. You will be obliged to prove that you or your lawyers have done all that could be expected to locate the freeholder. On the whole a specialist may be useful to try and locate and to produce an expert document to be used as evidence that the landlord is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer both on investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court covering Beckenham.

Planning to complete next month on a studio apartment in Beckenham. Conveyancing solicitors assured me that they are sending me a report within the next couple of days. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

Your report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Beckenham should include some of the following:

• How long the lease is You should be advised as what happens when the lease expires, and informed of the importance of not letting the lease term falling below eighty years
• Details of the parties to the lease, for example these could be the leaseholder (you), head lessor, freeholder
• Defining your rights in respect of common areas in the building.For instance, does the lease contain a right of way over an accessway or hallways?
• Repair and maintenance of the flat
• Changes to the flat (alterations and additions)
• Whether the landlord has obligations to ensure rights of quiet enjoyment over your property and do you know what it means in practice?
• Responsibility for repairing the window frames

Last month I purchased a leasehold property in Beckenham. Do I have any liability for service charges for periods before my ownership?

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. However, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. A critical element 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 agency in Beckenham where we have witnessed a number of leasehold sales put at risk as a result of short leases. I have been given contradictory information from local Beckenham conveyancing solicitors. Please can you confirm whether the seller 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 kick-start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser can avoid having to wait 2 years for a lease extension. 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.

An alternative approach is 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.

Following years of dialogue we cannot agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Beckenham. Does the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal have jurisdiction to calculate the appropriate figures?

in cases where there is a missing landlord or if there is dispute about the premium for a lease extension, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 it is possible to make an application to the LVT to make a decision on the premium.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement case for a Beckenham flat is 26 Manor Road in July 2010. the Tribunal decided that price to be paid for the freehold was £12,420 This case related to 2 flats. The the number of years remaining on the existing lease(s) was 76.75 and 88.83.

Beckenham Conveyancing for Leasehold Flats - Examples of Questions you should consider before Purchasing

Are there any major works in the near future that could add a premium to the maintenance fees? On the whole the outlay for major works tend not to be included within service charges, albeit that a few managing agents in Beckenham ask tenants to contribute towards a sinking fund and this is used to offset against larger works.