Fixed-fee leasehold conveyancing in Canning Town:

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While any conveyancing solicitor can theoretically deal with your leasehold conveyancing in Canning Town, your mortgage provider may unwilling to work with them if the firm are not on their list of approved solicitors for conveyancing

Canning Town leasehold conveyancing Example Support Desk Enquiries

I am in need of some leasehold conveyancing in Canning Town. Before diving in I would like to find out the unexpired term of the lease.

If the lease is registered - and 99.9% are in Canning Town - then the leasehold title will always include the basic details 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 62 years unexpired on my flat in Canning Town. I now want to get lease extension but my landlord is absent. What options are available to me?

If you meet the appropriate requirements, 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. However, you will be required to prove that you or your lawyers have made all reasonable attempts to find the landlord. On the whole an enquiry agent may be useful to carry out a search and prepare an expert document to be accepted by the court as evidence that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a solicitor in relation to devolving into the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Canning Town.

I've recently bought a leasehold property in Canning Town. Do I have any liability for service charges relating to a period prior to my ownership?

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. Strange as it may seem, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. It is an essential part 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 agency in Canning Town where we see a number of flat sales jeopardised as a result of short leases. I have been given inconsistent advice from local Canning Town conveyancing solicitors. Could you shed some light as to whether the seller of a flat can commence the lease extension formalities 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 proposed purchaser need not have to sit tight for 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed prior to, or at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.

Alternatively, it may be possible to agree the lease extension with the freeholder 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 Canning Town with the aim of speeding up the sale process?

  • A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Canning Town can be reduced where you get in touch lawyers the minute you market your property and ask them to collate the leasehold documentation which will be required by the buyers conveyancers.
  • The majority landlords or Management Companies in Canning Town levy fees for providing management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should enquire as to the actual amount of the charges. The management information can be applied for as soon as you have a buyer, thus reducing delays. The average time it takes to obtain the necessary information is three weeks. It is the most frequent cause of delay in leasehold conveyancing in Canning Town.
  • A minority of Canning Town leases require Landlord’s consent to the sale and approval of the buyers. If this applies to your lease, you should notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers obtain financial (bank) and professional references. The 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 service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the purchasers or their solicitors.
  • If you have had conflict with your freeholder or managing agents it is essential that these are settled prior to the flat being marketed. The buyers and their solicitors will be nervous about purchasing a property where a dispute is ongoing. You may have to bite the bullet and 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 particulars of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is clearly preferable to reveal the dispute as historic rather than unsettled.
  • You may think that you are aware of the number of years left on your lease but it would be advisable double-check via your lawyers. A purchaser's lawyer will not be happy to advise their client to where the lease term is under 75 years. It is therefore essential at an early stage that you consider whether the lease term 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 for a lease extension without getting anywhere. Can a leaseholder make an application to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal? Can you recommend a Canning Town conveyancing firm to help?

    Where there is a absentee freeholder or if there is disagreement about what the lease extension should cost, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal to judgment on the price.

    An example of a Lease Extension case for a Canning Town flat is 46 Credon Road in January 2014. On 11 September 2013 Deputy District Judge Price sitting at the Bow County Court made a vesting order that the freeholder surrender his lease and be granted a new lease of the Premises on such terms as may be determined by the First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber).The appropriate sum as concluded by the Tribunal was £7225 This case related to 1 flat. The the unexpired term as at the valuation date was 69.77 years.

    Other Topics

    Lease Extensions in Canning Town