I have recently realised that I have 68 years left on my lease in Brompton. I now want to get lease extension but my landlord is absent. What options are available to me?

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 extended by the Court. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you have used your best endeavours to find the lessor. On the whole an enquiry agent may be helpful to conduct investigations and to produce a report to be used as proof that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a solicitor both on devolving into the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court overseeing Brompton.

Expecting to complete next month on a leasehold property in Brompton. Conveyancing solicitors have said that they are sending me a report within the next couple of days. What should I be looking out for?

Your report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Brompton should include some of the following:

• You should be sent a copy of the lease

Details of the parties to the lease, for example these could be the leaseholder (you), head lessor, freeholder

Will you be prohibited or prevented from having pets in the property?

An explanation as to the provision in the lease to pay service charges - with regard to both the building, and the more general rights a leaseholder has

Whether your lease has a provision for a reserve fund?

Responsibility for repairing the window frames

What options are open to you if a neighbour is in violation of a provision in their lease? For details of the information to be included in your report on your leasehold property in Brompton please enquire of your conveyancer in ahead of your conveyancing in Brompton

I am tempted by the attractive purchase price for a two apartments in Brompton both have approximately 50 years remaining on the lease term. Will this present a problem?

There are no two ways about it. A leasehold apartment in Brompton is a deteriorating asset as a result of the shortening lease. The closer the lease gets to its expiry date, the more it adversely affects the salability of the premises. For most purchasers and banks, leases with less than eighty years become less and less attractive. On a more positive note, leaseholders can extend their leases by serving a Section 42 Notice. One stipulation is that they must have owned the property 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 Brompton 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 They may agree to a smaller lump sum and an increase in the ground rent, but to shorter extension terms in return. You need to ensure that the agreed 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.

Can you provide any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Brompton with the purpose of saving time on the sale process?

• Much of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Brompton can be bypassed where you get in touch lawyers the minute your agents start advertising the property and request that they start to collate the leasehold documentation needed by the buyers conveyancers.
• Many freeholders or Management Companies in Brompton levy fees for providing management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should discover the actual amount of the charges. The management information sought on or before finding a buyer, thus accelerating the process. The average time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most frequent cause of delay in leasehold conveyancing in Brompton.

In the event that you altered the property did you need the Landlord’s approval? Have you, for example installed wooden flooring? Most leases in Brompton state that internal structural alterations or laying down wooden flooring necessitate a licence issued by the Landlord acquiescing to such alterations. If you dont have the approvals in place you should not contact the landlord without checking with your conveyancer first.

Some Brompton leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this applies to your lease, you should place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers obtain bank and professional references. Any bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is able to meet 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 any disputes with your landlord or managing agents it is essential that these are resolved prior to the flat being put on the market. The buyers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a flat where a dispute is unsettled. You will have to accept that you will have to 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 prior to the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You are still duty bound to disclose details of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is better to present the dispute as over as opposed to ongoing.

All being well we will complete the sale of our £475000 garden flat in Brompton next week. The managing agents has quoted £336 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and 3 years statements of service charge. Is the landlord entitled to charge exorbitant fees for a leasehold conveyance in Brompton?

For most leasehold sales in Brompton 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-exchange questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Brompton
• Supplying insurance information
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your lawyer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Brompton leasehold premises is £350. For Brompton 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.

Following years of correspondence we cannot agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Brompton. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?

if there is a missing freeholder or where 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 Leasehold Valuation Tribunal to calculate the price.

An example of a Lease Extension matter before the tribunal for a Brompton premises is Flat 3 47 Cadogan Square in December 2010. the Tribunal determined that the premium payable to the landord by the leaseholder for the lease extension was £732,935 This case affected 1 flat. The unexpired term was 13.33 years.