I only have 72 years unexpired on my flat in Hainault. I now want to get lease extension but my freeholder is can not be found. What are my options?

On the basis that 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 granted an extra 90 years by the Court. However, you will be required to prove that you have made all reasonable attempts to track down the freeholder. In some cases an enquiry agent may be useful to conduct investigations and to produce an expert document which can be used as proof that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a property lawyer both on investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court covering Hainault.

Looking forward to complete next month on a garden flat in Hainault. Conveyancing lawyers inform me that they will have a report out to me next week. What should I be looking out for?

Your report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in Hainault should include some of the following:

• The length of the lease term You should be advised as what happens when the lease ends, and aware of the importance of not letting the lease term falling below eighty years

Details of the parties to the lease, for example these could be the leaseholder (you), head lessor, landlord

Ground rent - how much and when you need to pay, and also know whether this will change in the future

Whether your lease has a provision for a sinking fund?

I don't know whether the lease allows me to alter or improve anything in the flat - you should know whether it applies to all alterations or just structural alteration, and whether consent is required

Responsibility for repairing the window frames

What options are open to you if a neighbour is in violation of a provision in their lease? For details of the information to be contained in your report on your leasehold property in Hainault please ask your conveyancer in advance of your conveyancing in Hainault

I am employed by a long established estate agent office in Hainault where we see a few leasehold sales put at risk as a result of short leases. I have received contradictory information from local Hainault conveyancing firms. Please can you clarify whether the vendor of a flat can initiate 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 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 disposal of the property.

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 purchaser.

Completion in due on the disposal of our £450000 flat in Hainault next Friday . The management company has quoted £336 for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and previous years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge exorbitant fees for a flat conveyance in Hainault?

For most leasehold sales in Hainault conveyancing will involve, questions about the management of a building inevitably needing to be answered directly by the freeholder or its agent, this includes :

• Addressing pre-contract questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Hainault
• 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 solicitor will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Hainault leasehold property is £350. For Hainault 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 the information.

I am the leaseholder of a ground floor flat in Hainault. Given that I can not reach agreement with the landlord, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal determine the sum due for a lease extension?

Where there is a missing landlord or where there is dispute 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 First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to judgment on the premium.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement matter before the tribunal for a Hainault property is 201 & 201a St. Barnabas Road in October 2013. The Tribunal decided that the price to be paid by the Applicants for the freehold interest is £20,071. This case was in relation to 2 flats. The the unexpired term as at the valuation date was 69.26 years.

When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in Hainault what are the most frequent lease defects?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Hainault. All leases are individual and legal mistakes in the legal wording can result in certain clauses are wrong. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain elements 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

A defective lease will likely cause issues when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Birmingham Midshires, Coventry Building Society, and Godiva Mortgages Ltd all have express conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is defective they may refuse to provide security, obliging the purchaser to withdraw.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Hainault