Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Seventy years remaining on my flat in Ickenham. I am keen to get lease extension but my freeholder is absent. What should I do?

On the basis that you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be granted an extra 90 years by the magistrate. However, you will be required to prove 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 which can be accepted by the court as evidence that the landlord can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer in relation to devolving into the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court covering Ickenham.

I own a leasehold flat in Ickenham. Conveyancing and Alliance & Leicester mortgage organised. I have received a letter from someone saying they have taken over the reversionary interest in the property. It included a ground rent demand for rent dating back to 1992. The conveyancing solicitor in Ickenham who acted for me is not around.Any advice?

First make enquiries of the Land Registry to make sure that the individual claiming to own the freehold is in fact the new freeholder. It is not necessary to incur the fees of a Ickenham conveyancing firm to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for less than a fiver. Rest assured that regardless, even if this is the legitimate freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

I am tempted by the attractive purchase price for a couple of maisonettes in Ickenham which have approximately 50 years remaining on the lease term. Will this present a problem?

There is no doubt about it. A leasehold flat in Ickenham is a deteriorating asset as a result of the shortening lease. The nearer the lease gets to zero years unexpired, the more it reduces the value of the property. The majority of buyers and banks, leases with less than 75 years become less and less marketable. On a more upbeat note, leaseholders can extend their leases by serving a Section 42 Notice. One stipulation is that they must have owned the property for two years (unlike a Section 13 notice for purchasing the freehold, when leaseholders can participate from day one of ownership). When successful, they will have the right to an extension of 90 years to the current term and ground rent is effectively reduced to zero. Before moving forward with a purchase of property with a short lease term remaining you should talk to a solicitor specialising in lease extensions and leasehold enfranchisement. We are are happy to put you in touch with Ickenham conveyancing experts who will explain the options available to you during an initial telephone conversation free of charge. More often than not it is possible to negotiate informally with the freeholder to extend the lease You may find he or she is happy to negotiate informally and willing to consider your offer straight off, without having to involve anyone else. This will save you time and money and it could help you reach a lower price on the lease. You need to ensure that any new terms represent good long-term value compared with the standard benefits of the Section 42 Notice and that onerous clauses are not inserted into any redrafting of the lease.

I work for a long established estate agent office in Ickenham where we have experienced a few leasehold sales jeopardised as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received conflicting advice from local Ickenham conveyancing firms. Please can you shed some light as to whether the seller of a flat can initiate 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 start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the proposed purchaser 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 before, or simultaneously with 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.

I have attempted and failed to negotiate with my landlord to extend my lease without any joy. Can the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal adjudicate on such matters? Can you recommend a Ickenham conveyancing firm to help?

Absolutely. We are happy to put you in touch with a Ickenham conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Lease Extension case for a Ickenham residence is Flat 72 Queens Walk in January 2013. The Tribunals calculated the premium payable to be £22,090. This case affected 1 flat. The remaining number of years on the lease was 53.26 years.

What makes a Ickenham lease unmortgageable?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Ickenham. All leases are individual and legal mistakes in the legal wording can result in certain clauses are erroneous. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the property
• A duty to insure the building
• 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 will likely cause problems when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Lloyds TSB Bank, Chelsea Building Society, and Barclays Direct all have very detailed requirements 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, forcing the buyer to withdraw.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Ickenham