I have recently realised that I have 68 years remaining on my lease in Blackwall. I am keen to get lease extension but my freeholder is absent. What should I do?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be lengthened by the magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you have used your best endeavours to track down the landlord. For most situations an enquiry agent may be useful to conduct investigations and prepare a report which can be accepted by the court as evidence that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a property lawyer in relation to proving the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Blackwall.

I am attracted to a couple of flats in Blackwall which have in the region of forty five years unexpired on the lease term. should I be concerned?

A lease is a legal document that entitles you to use the property for a period of time. As the lease shortens the marketability of the lease deteriorate and results in it becoming more costly to extend the lease. For this reason it is advisable to increase the term of the lease. Sometimes it is difficult to sell a property with a short lease because mortgage lenders less inclined to grant a loan on such properties. Lease extension can be a protracted process. We recommend you get professional help from a conveyancer and surveyor with experience in this field

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Blackwall from the perspective of expediting the sale process?

• Much of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Blackwall can be bypassed where you appoint lawyers the minute you market your property and ask them to collate the leasehold documentation which will be required by the buyers lawyers.
• The majority freeholders or Management Companies in Blackwall charge for providing management packs for a leasehold premises. You or your lawyers should enquire as to the fee that they propose to charge. The management information can be applied for as soon as you have a buyer, thus accelerating the process. The average time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most usual cause of delay in leasehold conveyancing in Blackwall.

Some Blackwall leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this is the case, you should place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers obtain bank and professional references. The 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 service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their solicitors.

If you have had any disputes with your landlord or managing agents it is very important that these are resolved before the property is put on the market. The purchasers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a property where there is a current dispute. You may have to bite the bullet and discharge any arrears of service charge or settle the dispute prior to completion of the sale. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled prior to the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You are still duty bound to disclose details of the dispute to the buyers, but it is clearly preferable to reveal the dispute as over as opposed to unsettled.

You may think that you are aware of the number of years remaining on your lease but it would be wise to verify this via your lawyers. A buyer’s lawyer will be unlikely to recommend their client to where the lease term is under 80 years. It is therefore important at an as soon as possible that you identify whether the lease term requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your property on the market for sale.

All being well we will complete our sale of a £350000 garden flat in Blackwall next Wednesday . The freeholder has quoted £420 for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and previous years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in Blackwall?

Blackwall conveyancing on leasehold apartments normally necessitates administration charges raised by freeholders :

• Answering pre-exchange questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Blackwall
• 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 Blackwall leasehold premises is £350. For Blackwall 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 answers.

I have tried to negotiate informally with with my landlord for a lease extension without success. Can a leaseholder make an application to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal? Can you recommend a Blackwall conveyancing firm to act on my behalf?

Most certainly. We are happy to put you in touch with a Blackwall conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement case for a Blackwall residence is 12, 14 & 16 Hull Close in May 2010. the Tribunal determined that the premium payable for the acquisition of the freehold to the subject premises was the sum of £18,300 This case was in relation to 3 flats. The remaining number of years on the lease was 101.61 years.

In relation to leasehold conveyancing in Blackwall what are the most common lease problems?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Blackwall. All leases are individual and legal mistakes in the legal wording can sometimes mean that certain sections are erroneous. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:

• A provision to repair to or maintain elements of the premises
• 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 may encounter a problem when selling your property if you have a defective lease primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Accord Mortgages Ltd, Skipton Building Society, and Aldermore 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 problematic they may refuse to provide security, obliging the buyer to withdraw.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Blackwall