My partner and I may need to rent out our Cockfosters garden flat for a while due to taking a sabbatical. We instructed a Cockfosters conveyancing practice in 2003 but they have since shut and we did not have the foresight to get any guidance as to whether the lease permits subletting. How do we find out?

Notwithstanding that your last Cockfosters conveyancing solicitor is no longer available you can review your lease to see if you are permitted to let out the property. The rule is that if the lease is non-specific, subletting is permitted. There may be a precondition that you must seek consent via your landlord or other appropriate person before subletting. The net result is that you cannot sublet without prior permission. The consent is not allowed to be unreasonably turned down. If the lease does not allow you to sublet you will need to ask your landlord for their consent.

There are only Seventy years remaining on my flat in Cockfosters. I need to get lease extension but my landlord is absent. What are my options?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for for permission 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 or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to find the landlord. For most situations a specialist would be useful to conduct investigations and prepare an expert document which can be used as evidence that the freeholder can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer both on proving the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court overseeing Cockfosters.

Due to exchange soon on a studio apartment in Cockfosters. Conveyancing solicitors inform me that they will have a report out to me within the next couple of days. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

The report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Cockfosters should include some of the following:

• How long the lease is You should be advised as what happens when the lease expires, and aware of the importance of not letting the lease term falling below eighty years

Setting out your rights in relation to the communal areas in the building.E.G., does the lease include a right of way over an accessway or staircase?

Whether your lease has a provision for a reserve fund?

The landlord’s rights to access the flat you be made aware that your landlord has rights of access and I know how much notice s/he must provide.

Whether the landlord has obligations to ensure rights of quiet enjoyment over your property and do you know what it means in practice?

Responsibility for repairing the window frames

What the implications are if you breach a clause of your lease? For details of the information to be included in your report on your leasehold property in Cockfosters please ask your solicitor in ahead of your conveyancing in Cockfosters

Back In 2008, I bought a leasehold house in Cockfosters. Conveyancing and Platform Home Loans Ltd mortgage are in place. A letter has just been received from someone claiming to own the reversionary interest in the property. It included a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1992. The conveyancing solicitor in Cockfosters who previously acted has long since retired.What should I do?

The first thing you should do is make enquiries of HMLR to be sure that this person is indeed the registered owner of the freehold reversion. You do not need to instruct a Cockfosters conveyancing solicitor to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for £3. Rest assured that in any event, even if this is the legitimate freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 no more than 6 years of rent can be collected.

All being well we will complete the sale of our £150000 flat in Cockfosters on Wednesday in a week. The freeholder has quoted £408 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and 3 years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge exorbitant fees for a flat conveyance in Cockfosters?

Cockfosters conveyancing on leasehold apartments ordinarily involves fees being raised by landlords agents :

• Completing pre-exchange questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Cockfosters
• 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 conveyancer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Cockfosters leasehold property is £350. For Cockfosters 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 required to supply answers.

I am the proprietor of a second floor flat in Cockfosters. Given that I can not reach agreement with the freeholder, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal make a decision on the sum due for a lease extension?

Where there is a absentee landlord or where 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 LVT to determine the premium.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement decision for a Cockfosters flat is 23 Beaconsfield Road in July 2013. The Tribunals decided that the amount payable was £31,203 for the freehold. This case related to 2 flats. The unexpired term was 70.31 years.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Cockfosters