Helen (my wife) and I may need to sub-let our Dalston ground floor flat for a while due to a career opportunity. We used a Dalston conveyancing practice in 2001 but they have since shut and we did not have the foresight to get any guidance as to whether the lease prohibits the subletting of the flat. How do we find out?

Even though your last Dalston conveyancing lawyer is not available you can review your lease to check if it allows you to sublet the property. The rule is that if the deeds are silent, subletting is permitted. There may be a precondition that you are obliged to seek permission from your landlord or other appropriate person before subletting. The net result is you not allowed to sublet in the absence of prior consent. The consent should not be unreasonably turned down. If the lease prohibits you from subletting the property you should ask your landlord if they are willing to waive this restriction.

Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Seventy years remaining on my lease in Dalston. I now wish 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 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 extended by the magistrate. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have made all reasonable attempts to find the landlord. In some cases a specialist may be useful to try and locate and prepare an expert document which can be accepted by the court as evidence that the landlord can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer in relation to investigating the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court overseeing Dalston.

I work for a busy estate agency in Dalston where we see a few flat sales put at risk due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received inconsistent advice from local Dalston conveyancing firms. Please can you shed some light as to whether the seller of a flat can commence the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

As long as 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 to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done before, or simultaneously with completion of the sale.

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 purchaser.

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Dalston with the intention of saving time on the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Dalston can be reduced if you get in touch lawyers as soon as you market your property and request that they start to put together the leasehold information needed by the purchasers’ lawyers.
• Many landlords or managing agents in Dalston charge for supplying management packs for a leasehold premises. You or your lawyers should enquire as to the actual amount of the charges. The management information can be applied for on or before finding a buyer, thus reducing delays. The typical amount of time it takes to obtain the necessary information is three weeks. It is the most frequent cause of frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Dalston.
• If you have carried out any alterations to the property would they have required Landlord’s permission? In particular have you installed wooden flooring? Dalston leases often stipulate that internal structural changes or laying down wooden flooring calls for a licence from the Landlord consenting to such alterations. Where you fail to have the approvals in place do not contact the landlord without checking with your lawyer first.
• If you have had conflict with your landlord or managing agents it is essential that these are resolved before the property is put on the market. The purchasers and their solicitors will be concerned about purchasing a flat where there is an ongoing dispute. 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 unresolved.
• If you have the benefit of shareholding in the freehold, you should make sure that you have the original share certificate. Obtaining a new share certificate is often a lengthy process and slows down many a Dalston conveyancing deal. Where a new share is needed, you should approach the company officers or managing agents (where applicable) for this at the earliest opportunity.

If all goes to plan we aim to complete the disposal of our £ 200000 apartment in Dalston next Thursday . The landlords agents has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and previous years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge exorbitant fees for a leasehold conveyance in Dalston?

Dalston conveyancing on leasehold maisonettes typically results in administration charges raised by freeholders :

• Completing pre-exchange questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Dalston
• Supplying insurance information
• 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 Dalston leasehold property is £350. For Dalston 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 provide answers.

Having spent years of negotiations we simply can't agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Dalston. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?

Where there is a missing landlord or if there is disagreement about the premium for a lease extension, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 it is possible to make an application to the LVT to determine the price.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement matter before the tribunal for a Dalston flat is 150 Amhurst Road in December 2013. The tribunal concluded that the premium to be paid by the applicant for the enfranchisement of the subject property was £43,500. This case was in relation to 4 flats. The unexpired lease term was 90 (or thereabouts).

Leasehold Conveyancing in Dalston - Examples of Questions you should ask Prior to Purchasing

The prefered form of lease structure is if the freehold interest is owned by the leaseholders. In this situation the tenants benefit from control and notwithstanding that a managing agent is frequently employed if the building is larger than a house conversion, the managing agent acts for the leaseholders themselves. The answer will be important as a) areas could result in problems for the block as the communal areas may start to deteriorate if services remain unpaid b) if the tenants have a dispute with the managing agents you will need to know about it