Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Fifty years left on my lease in Harold Park. I need to extend my lease but my freeholder is absent. What are my options?

If you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be extended by the Court. However, you will be required to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have made all reasonable attempts to locate the lessor. In some cases a specialist should be useful to carry out a search and to produce a report to be used as proof that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer in relation to proving the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Harold Park.

My wife and I purchased a leasehold flat in Harold Park. Conveyancing and Birmingham Midshires mortgage organised. A letter has just been received from someone saying they have taken over the freehold. It included a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1996. The conveyancing solicitor in Harold Park who previously acted has now retired.Do I pay?

The first thing you should do is make enquiries of HMLR to be sure that the individual claiming to own the freehold is indeed the new freeholder. You do not need to instruct a Harold Park conveyancing practitioner to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for a few pound. You should note that in any event, even if this is the legitimate landlord, under the Limitation Act 1980 no more than 6 years of rent can be collected.

I am a negotiator for a long established estate agent office in Harold Park where we have experienced a number of flat sales derailed due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given contradictory information from local Harold Park conveyancing firms. Can you shed some light as to whether the owner of a flat can initiate 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 commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the buyer can avoid having to sit tight for 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment has to be done prior to, 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.

All being well we will complete the disposal of our £475000 flat in Harold Park in just under a week. The freeholder has quoted £336 for Certificate of Compliance, building insurance schedule and previous years statements of service charge. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a flat conveyance in Harold Park?

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

• Completing conveyancing due diligence enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Harold Park
• 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 Harold Park leasehold property is £350. For Harold Park 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 answers.

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

Where there is a absentee landlord or if there is dispute about what the lease extension should cost, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to judgment on the amount due.

An example of a Lease Extension case for a Harold Park flat is 37 Lodge Court High Street in November 2013. the decision of the LVT was that the premium to be paid for the new lease was £25,559 This case related to 1 flat. The the unexpired residue of the current lease was 57.5 years.

In relation to leasehold conveyancing in Harold Park what are the most common lease problems?

Leasehold conveyancing in Harold Park is not unique. Most leases are individual and drafting errors can result in certain sections are wrong. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• A provision to repair to or maintain elements of the building
• Insurance obligations
• Clauses dealing with recovering service charges for expenditure on the building or common parts.
• Service charge per centages that don't add up correctly leaving a shortfall

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. Santander, Virgin Money, and Godiva Mortgages Ltd all have very detailed conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. Where a lender has been advised by their lawyers that the lease is problematic they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the buyer to withdraw.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Harold Park