Frank (my husband) and I may need to let out our Belvedere basement flat for a while due to a career opportunity. We used a Belvedere conveyancing practice in 2004 but they have since shut and we did not think at the time get any guidance as to whether the lease permits subletting. How do we find out?

Notwithstanding that your last Belvedere conveyancing lawyer is not available you can review your lease to see if it allows you to sublet the premises. The rule is that if the deeds are silent, subletting is permitted. Quite often there is a prerequisite that you need to obtain permission via your landlord or some other party prior to subletting. The net result is you not allowed to sublet without prior consent. The consent should not be unreasonably withheld. If your lease prohibits you from letting out the property you should ask your landlord for their consent.

Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my basement apartment in Belvedere.Conveyancing has not commenced but I have just had a half-yearly service charge demand – Do I pay up?

The sensible thing to do is pay the invoice 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 management companies 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.

I am attracted to a two apartments in Belvedere both have approximately fifty years left on the leases. should I be concerned?

There are plenty of short leases in Belvedere. The lease is a legal document that entitles you to use the property for a period of time. As the lease gets shorter the value of the lease reduces and results in it becoming more expensive to acquire a lease extension. For this reason it is generally wise to extend the lease term. Sometimes it is difficult to sell a property with a short lease because mortgage companies less inclined to grant a loan on such properties. Lease enfranchisement can be a protracted process. We recommend you seek professional help from a conveyancer and surveyor with experience in this arena

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Belvedere from the point of view of speeding up the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Belvedere can be avoided where you instruct lawyers the minute your agents start marketing the property and request that they start to put together the leasehold information needed by the purchasers’ conveyancers.
• Many landlords or Management Companies in Belvedere levy fees for supplying management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should discover the actual amount of the charges. The management pack sought as soon as you have a buyer, thus reducing delays. The typical amount of time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most frequent cause of delay in leasehold conveyancing in Belvedere.
• If you have carried out any alterations to the residence would they have required Landlord’s permission? Have you, for example installed wooden flooring? Belvedere leases often stipulate that internal structural changes or installing wooden flooring necessitate a licence issued by the Landlord consenting to such works. If you dont have the consents in place do not communicate with the landlord without contacting your conveyancer before hand.
• A minority of Belvedere leases require Landlord’s consent to the sale and approval of the buyers. If this is the case, it would be prudent to place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers obtain bank and professional references. Any bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are able to meet 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 purchasers or their lawyers.
• If there is a history of any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are settled prior to the flat being put on the market. The buyers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a property where there is a current dispute. You may have to bite the bullet and pay any arrears of service charge or resolve the dispute prior to completion of the sale. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled ahead of the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You are still duty bound to disclose particulars of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is clearly preferable to present the dispute as over as opposed to unsettled.

Completion in due on the sale of our £ 200000 apartment in Belvedere on Wednesday in a week. The freeholder has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and previous years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a flat conveyance in Belvedere?

For the majority of leasehold sales in Belvedere conveyancing will involve, questions about the management of a building inevitably needing to be answered directly by the freeholder or its agent, this includes :

• Answering conveyancing due diligence questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Belvedere
• 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 Belvedere leasehold property is £350. For Belvedere 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 obliged to supply the information.

I am the leaseholder of a ground-floor 1960’s flat in Belvedere. Given that I can not reach agreement with the landlord, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal determine the amount due for the purchase of the freehold?

in cases where there is a missing freeholder or where there is disagreement 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 calculate the amount due.

An example of a Lease Extension case for a Belvedere residence 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 related to 13 flats. The remaining number of years on the lease was 76 years.

Belvedere Leasehold Conveyancing - Sample of Questions you should consider Prior to buying