Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Sixty One years left on my flat in Fulwell. I now wish to get lease extension but my freeholder is missing. What are my options?

On the basis that 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. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to locate the freeholder. On the whole an enquiry agent should be helpful to conduct investigations and to produce a report which can be accepted by the court as proof that the landlord can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer both on investigating the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court overseeing Fulwell.

Expecting to complete next month on a leasehold property in Fulwell. Conveyancing solicitors assured me that they will have a report out to me on Monday. What should I be looking out for?

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

• Does the lease prevent you from renting out the flat, or working from home

I’m about to sell my 2 bed apartment in Fulwell.Conveyancing lawyers have not yet been instructed but I have just had a quarterly service charge demand – what should I do?

It best that you pay the service charge as normal because all ground rent and service charges will be apportioned on completion, so you will be reimbursed by the buyer for the period running from after the completion date to the next payment date. Most management companies will not acknowledge the buyer until the service charges have been paid and are up to date so it is important for both buyer and seller for the seller to show that they are up to date. Having a clear account will assist your cause and will leave you no worse off financially.

I am employed by a long established estate agent office in Fulwell where we see a few flat sales jeopardised due to short leases. I have been given conflicting advice from local Fulwell conveyancing solicitors. Could you clarify whether the owner of a flat can instigate 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 commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser can avoid having 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.

An alternative approach is to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord 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.

I have tried to negotiate informally with with my landlord to extend my lease without getting anywhere. Can the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal decide on such matters? Can you recommend a Fulwell conveyancing firm to act on my behalf?

Where there is a missing freeholder or if there is dispute about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant legislation it is possible to make an application to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to make a decision on the price.

An example of a Lease Extension decision for a Fulwell flat is Ground Floor Flat 91 Bath Road in May 2009. in a case where the freeholder could not be traced, the Brentford County Court ordered that the Lease be surrendered in return for the grant of a new lease of the Premises at a premium determined by the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal. The tribunal concluded that the price payable by the Applicant for the new lease of the premises be £15,900 This case related to 1 flat. The the unexpired residue of the current lease was 60.45 years.

What makes a Fulwell lease unacceptable for security purposes?

Leasehold conveyancing in Fulwell is not unique. All leases are individual and drafting errors can sometimes mean that certain provisions are missing. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain elements of the building
• A duty to insure the building
• 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

A defective lease can cause issues when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. National Westminster Bank, The Royal Bank of Scotland, and Britannia all have very detailed conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease does not cover certain provisions they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the buyer to pull out.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Fulwell