My wife and I may need to sub-let our Fortis Green ground floor flat for a while due to a career opportunity. We instructed a Fortis Green conveyancing practice in 2002 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 Fortis Green conveyancing solicitor is not around you can check your lease to check if you are permitted to let out the apartment. The rule is that if the deeds are silent, subletting is allowed. There may be a precondition that you need to seek permission via your landlord or other appropriate person prior to subletting. This means that you cannot sublet in the absence of first obtaining permission. Such consent must not not be unreasonably withheld. If your lease prohibits you from subletting the property you will need to ask your landlord for their consent.

Last month I purchased a leasehold property in Fortis Green. Am I liable to pay service charges for periods before completion of my purchase?

In a situation where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous owner and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. However, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. A critical element 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 Fortis Green where we have experienced a few leasehold sales put at risk as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given contradictory information from local Fortis Green conveyancing solicitors. Could you clarify whether the seller of a flat can commence the lease extension formalities for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

Provided that the seller has been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to kick-start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means 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 needs to be completed before, or at the same time as 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 buyer.

If all goes to plan we aim to complete the sale of our £325000 garden flat in Fortis Green next Tuesday . The management company has quoted £384 for Certificate of Compliance, building insurance schedule and previous years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in Fortis Green?

For most leasehold sales in Fortis Green conveyancing will involve, questions about 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 Fortis Green
• 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 lawyer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Fortis Green leasehold premises is £350. For Fortis Green 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 provide the information.

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

Most certainly. We can put you in touch with a Fortis Green conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Lease Extension decision for a Fortis Green residence is 21 St Matthews Court Coppetts Road in February 2013. the applicant applied to the Tribunal for a determination of the premium payable for a lease extension pursuant to Section 48 of the Leasehold Reform (Housing and Urban Development ) Act 1993. The tribunal therefore ordered that the premium was to be £13,267. This case was in relation to 1 flat. The unexpired term was 68 years.

What makes a Fortis Green lease problematic?

Leasehold conveyancing in Fortis Green is not unique. Most leases are individual and legal mistakes in the legal wording can result in certain sections are wrong. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the property
• Insurance obligations
• Clauses dealing with recovering service charges for expenditure on the building or common parts.
• Maintenance charge proportions which don’t add up to the correct percentage

You will have difficulties when selling your property if you have a defective lease primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Yorkshire Building Society, Bank of Scotland, and Godiva Mortgages Ltd all have express requirements when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is problematic they may refuse to provide security, forcing the purchaser to pull out.