There are only Sixty One years unexpired on my lease in Brimsdown. I am keen to extend my lease but my freeholder is absent. What options are available to me?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will mean that your lease can be granted an extra 90 years by the magistrate. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you have made all reasonable attempts to track down the lessor. In some cases an enquiry agent may be helpful to carry out a search and to produce a report to be used as evidence that the landlord is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a solicitor in relation to proving the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Brimsdown.

I am tempted by the attractive purchase price for a couple of maisonettes in Brimsdown both have approximately forty five years unexpired on the leases. Do I need to be concerned?

There are no two ways about it. A leasehold apartment in Brimsdown is a wasting asset as a result of the shortening lease. The nearer the lease gets to zero years unexpired, the more it reduces the marketability of the property. The majority of purchasers and mortgage companies, leases with under 75 years become less and less attractive. On a more upbeat note, leaseholders can extend their leases by serving a Section 42 Notice. One stipulation is that they must have owned the premises for two years (unlike a Section 13 notice for purchasing the freehold, when leaseholders can participate from day one of ownership). When successful, they will have the right to an extension of 90 years to the current term and ground rent is effectively reduced to zero. Before moving forward with a purchase of a residence with a short lease term remaining you should talk to a solicitor specialising in lease extensions and leasehold enfranchisement. We are are happy to put you in touch with Brimsdown conveyancing experts who will explain the options available to you during an initial telephone conversation free of charge. A more straightforward and quicker method of extending would be to contact your landlord directly and sound him out on the prospect of extending the lease You may find he or she is happy to negotiate informally and willing to consider your offer straight off, without having to involve anyone else. This will save you time and money and it could help you reach a lower price on the lease. You need to ensure that any new terms represent good long-term value compared with the standard benefits of the Section 42 Notice and that onerous clauses are not inserted into any redrafting of the lease.

I work for a busy estate agent office in Brimsdown where we have experienced a few leasehold sales derailed due to short leases. I have been given contradictory information from local Brimsdown conveyancing solicitors. Please can you shed some light as to whether the owner of a flat can instigate 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. The benefit of this is that the buyer need not have to wait 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done before, or simultaneously with 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.

All being well we will complete the disposal of our £325000 garden flat in Brimsdown next Monday . The managing agents has quoted £384 for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and 3 years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge exorbitant fees for a flat conveyance in Brimsdown?

Brimsdown conveyancing on leasehold apartments often involves the purchaser’s conveyancer submitting enquiries for the landlord to answer. Although the landlord is under no legal obligation to address such questions most will be willing to assist. They are at liberty invoice a reasonable administration fee for responding to enquiries or supplying documentation. There is no upper cap for such fees. The average fee for the information that you are referring to is over three hundred pounds, in some situations it is above £800. The administration charge required by the landlord must be accompanied by a synopsis of entitlements and obligations in respect of administration charges, without which the charge is technically not due. In reality you have no choice but to pay whatever is demanded if you want to sell the property.

I inherited a first floor flat in Brimsdown. Given that I can not reach agreement with the freeholder, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal make a decision on the sum due for the purchase of the freehold?

in cases where there is a absentee landlord or if there is disagreement about what the lease extension should cost, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 it is possible to make an application to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to calculate the price.

An example of a Vesting Order and Purchase of freehold case for a Brimsdown flat is Ground Floor Flat 4A Baronet Road in February 2010. Following a vesting order by Edmonton County Court on 23rd December 2008 (case number 8ED064) the Tribunal decided that the price that the Applicant for the freehold interest should pay is £8,689.00 This case related to 2 flats. The unexpired lease term was 80.01 years.

In relation to leasehold conveyancing in Brimsdown what are the most frequent lease problems?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Brimsdown. All leases are individual and drafting errors can result in certain sections are missing. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the premises
• Insurance obligations
• Clauses dealing with recovering service charges for expenditure on the building or common parts.
• Service charge per centages that don't add up correctly leaving a shortfall

You will 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. Halifax, Norwich and Peterborough Building Society, and Barclays Direct all have very detailed conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. Where a lender has been advised by their lawyers that the lease is problematic they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the buyer to withdraw.