I want to sublet my leasehold flat in Freezywater. Conveyancing solicitor who did the purchase is retired - so can't ask her. Is permission from the freeholder required?

Even though your last Freezywater conveyancing solicitor is no longer available you can review your lease to check if you are permitted to let out the apartment. The accepted inference is that if the deeds are non-specific, subletting is permitted. Quite often there is a prerequisite that you are obliged to obtain consent from your landlord or some other party in advance of subletting. The net result is that you cannot sublet in the absence of first obtaining permission. Such consent is not allowed to be unreasonably turned down. If the lease prohibits you from letting out the property you should ask your landlord for their consent.

There are only 62 years remaining on my flat in Freezywater. I am keen to extend my lease but my freeholder is missing. What options are available to me?

On the basis that 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 extended by the magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to locate the landlord. In some cases an enquiry agent should be useful to try and locate and to produce a report which can be used as evidence that the freeholder can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer in relation to proving the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Freezywater.

I am a negotiator for a busy estate agency in Freezywater where we see a number of leasehold sales derailed due to short leases. I have been given contradictory information from local Freezywater conveyancing solicitors. Can you clarify whether the vendor of a flat can instigate the lease extension formalities for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

Provided that the seller has owned the lease 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 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 before, or at the same time as completion of the sale.

An alternative approach is 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 Freezywater from the perspective of expediting the sale process?

• Much of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Freezywater can be bypassed where you instruct lawyers as soon as your agents start advertising the property and ask them to put together the leasehold documentation needed by the purchasers’ lawyers.
• Many landlords or Management Companies in Freezywater levy fees for supplying management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should enquire as to the actual amount of the charges. The management pack sought as soon as you have a buyer, thus accelerating the process. The average time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most usual reason for frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Freezywater.

If you have carried out any alterations to the residence would they have required Landlord’s consent? In particular have you installed wooden flooring? Freezywater leases often stipulate that internal structural changes or addition of wooden flooring necessitate a licence issued by the Landlord approving such changes. Where you fail to have the consents to hand do not contact the landlord without checking with your conveyancer before hand.

If there is a history of any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are resolved before the property is marketed. The purchasers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a flat where a dispute is unresolved. You will have to accept that you will have to pay any arrears of service charge or settle 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 are still duty bound to disclose particulars of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is better to reveal the dispute as historic as opposed to unresolved.

You may think that you are aware of the number of years left on your lease but you should verify this via your lawyers. A purchaser's lawyer will not be happy to advise their client to proceed with the purchase of a leasehold property the remaining number of years is below 75 years. It is therefore important at an early stage that you consider whether the lease term for your property needs extending. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your premises on the market for sale.

If all goes to plan we aim to complete the disposal of our £350000 maisonette in Freezywater in seven days. The management company has quoted £408 for Certificate of Compliance, building insurance schedule and previous years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge exorbitant fees for a flat conveyance in Freezywater?

For most leasehold sales in Freezywater 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 conveyancing due diligence enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Freezywater
• 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 Freezywater leasehold premises is £350. For Freezywater 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.

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

You certainly can. We can put you in touch with a Freezywater conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Vesting Order and Purchase of freehold decision for a Freezywater property is Ground Floor Flat 4A Baronet Road in February 2010. Following a vesting order by Edmonton County Court on 23rd December 2008 (case number 8ED064) the Tribunal decided that the price that the Applicant for the freehold interest should pay is £8,689.00 This case was in relation to 2 flats. The remaining number of years on the lease was 80.01 years.