There are only Seventy years left on my lease in Belsize Park. I now wish to get lease extension but my freeholder is absent. What options are available to me?

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 prove that you have done all that could be expected to track down the freeholder. For most situations an enquiry agent should be useful to conduct investigations and to produce an expert document which can be used as proof that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer in relation to devolving into the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court overseeing Belsize Park.

I've recently bought a leasehold property in Belsize Park. Am I liable to pay service charges for periods before 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. 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).

What advice can you give us when it comes to finding a Belsize Park conveyancing firm to carry out our lease extension conveyancing?

If you are instructing a property lawyer for your lease extension (regardless if they are a Belsize Park conveyancing firm) it is most important that he or she should be familiar with the legislation and specialises in this area of work. We suggested that you make enquires with two or three firms including non Belsize Park conveyancing practices prior to instructing a firm. Where the conveyancing practice is ALEP accredited then that’s a bonus. Some following of questions might be useful:

• If they are not ALEP accredited then why not?

How many lease extensions has the firm carried out in Belsize Park in the last twenty four months?

Do you have any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Belsize Park with the intention of speeding up the sale process?

• Much of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Belsize Park can be bypassed if you get in touch lawyers as soon as you market your property and request that they start to put together the leasehold information which will be required by the purchasers’ solicitors.
• Some Belsize Park leases require Landlord’s consent to the sale and approval of the buyers. If this is the case, you should notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers put in hand bank and professional references. The bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is financially capable of paying the annual service charge and the actual amount of the service charge should be quoted in the bank’s letter. You will therefore need to provide your estate agents with the actual amount of the service charge so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their solicitors.

If there is a history of conflict with your landlord or managing agents it is essential that these are resolved before the property is put on the market. The purchasers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a flat where a dispute is unresolved. You may have to bite the bullet and pay any arrears of service charge or resolve the dispute prior to the buyers completing the purchase. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled ahead of the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You will still have to reveal details of the dispute to the buyers, but it is better to present the dispute as historic rather than unresolved.

If you are supposed to have a share in the Management Company, you should make sure that you have the original share certificate. Organising a replacement share certificate is often a time consuming formality and delays many a Belsize Park home move. If a duplicate share is required, you should approach the company officers or managing agents (where applicable) for this sooner rather than later.

You believe that you know the number of years left on your lease but it would be wise to double-check by asking your lawyers. A purchaser's conveyancer will not be happy to advise their client to where the remaining number of years is below 75 years. In the circumstances it is essential at an as soon as possible that you identify whether the lease requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your property on the market for sale.

We expect to complete the sale of our £500000 apartment in Belsize Park in just under a week. The freeholder 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 flat conveyance in Belsize Park?

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

• Answering pre-contract enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Belsize Park
• 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 solicitor will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Belsize Park leasehold premises is £350. For Belsize Park 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 provide the information.

We have reached the end of our tether in negotiating a lease extension in Belsize Park. Can the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal adjudicate on premiums?

Most definitely. We can put you in touch with a Belsize Park conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Lease Extension case for a Belsize Park premises is First Floor Flat 20 Fitzjohns Avenue in July 2014. the Tribunal decided that the premiums to be paid for new leases in respect of the Raised Ground Floor Flat and the First Floor Flat were to be calculated as: Raised Ground Floor: £765,175.14 First Floor: £601,617.77 This case affected 2 flats. The the number of years remaining on the existing lease(s) was 16.83 and 16.43.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Belsize Park