Fixed-fee leasehold conveyancing in Bickley:

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When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in Bickley, you will need to chose a conveyancing practitioner with leasehold experience. Whether your mortgage company is to be Lloyds, Yorkshire Building Society or NatWest make sure you choose a lawyer on their approved list. Find a Bickley conveyancing lawyer with our search tool

Recently asked questions relating to Bickley leasehold conveyancing

I am on look out for some leasehold conveyancing in Bickley. Before I set the wheels in motion I want to be sure as to the number of years remaining on the lease.

If the lease is recorded at the land registry - and almost all are in Bickley - then the leasehold title will always include the short particulars 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 left on my flat in Bickley. I need to get lease extension but my landlord 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 enable the lease to be granted an extra 90 years by the Court. You will be obliged to prove that you have made all reasonable attempts to locate the landlord. For most situations an enquiry agent would be useful to conduct investigations and to produce an expert document to be used as proof that the landlord can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a solicitor both on devolving into the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court covering Bickley.

Last month I purchased a leasehold flat in Bickley. 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 lessee 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 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 a negotiator for a busy estate agent office in Bickley where we have experienced a number of flat sales put at risk as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given inconsistent advice from local Bickley conveyancing firms. Could you shed some light as to whether the vendor of a flat can start the lease extension process for the buyer?

Provided that 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 wait 2 years to extend their lease. 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.

An alternative approach is 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.

Do you have any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Bickley from the perspective of speeding up the sale process?

  • A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Bickley can be reduced if you appoint lawyers as soon as your agents start advertising the property and ask them to put together the leasehold documentation needed by the purchasers’ representatives.
  • If you have carried out any alterations to the property would they have required Landlord’s approval? Have you, for example laid down wooden flooring? Most leases in Bickley state that internal structural alterations or laying down wooden flooring require a licence from the Landlord approving such works. If you dont have the consents to hand do not communicate with the landlord without checking with your lawyer first.
  • A minority of Bickley leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers put in hand financial (bank) and professional references. The bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are financially capable of paying the yearly 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 solicitors.
  • If there is a history of conflict with your freeholder or managing agents it is essential that these are resolved before the property is marketed. The buyers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a flat where a dispute is ongoing. You will have to accept that you will have to discharge 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 will still have to reveal details of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is better to reveal the dispute as historic rather than ongoing.
  • You may think that you are aware of the number of years left on your lease but you should double-check by asking your lawyers. A purchaser's lawyer will not be happy to advise their client to proceed with the purchase of a leasehold property the lease term is below 75 years. It is therefore important 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.

    • I have tried to negotiate informally with with my landlord to extend my lease without success. Can a leaseholder apply to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal? Can you recommend a Bickley conveyancing firm to help?

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

    An example of a Lease Extension decision for a Bickley property is 1 Southlands Court Southlands Road in September 2013. The Leasehold Valuation Tribunal determined that the premium to be paid by the tenant on the grant of a new lease, in accordance with section 56 and Schedule 13 of the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 was £30,541 This case related to 1 flat. The unexpired term was 50.57 years.

    Other Topics

    Lease Extensions in Bickley