Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Sixty One years left on my flat in Lamorbey. I am keen to extend my lease but my freeholder is can not be found. What are my options?

If you meet the appropriate requirements, 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 granted an extra 90 years by the Court. You will be obliged to prove that you have used your best endeavours to track down the freeholder. On the whole an enquiry agent may be helpful to carry out a search and to produce an expert document which can be used as evidence that the landlord can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer both on devolving into the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Lamorbey.

I am looking at a two apartments in Lamorbey which have approximately fifty years remaining on the leases. Should I regard a short lease as a deal breaker?

There are plenty of short leases in Lamorbey. The lease is a right to use the property for a period of time. As the lease gets shorter the marketability of the lease reduces and it becomes more costly to acquire a lease extension. This is why it is generally wise to extend the lease term. More often than not it is difficult to sell a property with a short lease because mortgage companies less inclined to grant a loan on properties of this type. Lease extension can be a difficult process. We advise that you seek professional assistance from a solicitor and surveyor with experience in this area

I work for a long established estate agent office in Lamorbey where we have witnessed a few flat sales derailed due to short leases. I have received contradictory information from local Lamorbey conveyancing solicitors. Please can you confirm whether the owner of a flat can initiate the lease extension formalities 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 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 wait 2 years to extend their lease. 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 disposal of the property.

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 our sale of a £350000 garden flat in Lamorbey next Monday . The management company has quoted £372 for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and previous years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge exorbitant fees for a leasehold conveyance in Lamorbey?

For most leasehold sales in Lamorbey 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 pre-contract enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Lamorbey
• 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 Lamorbey leasehold property is £350. For Lamorbey 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.

Following months of negotiations we cannot agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Lamorbey. Does the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal have jurisdiction to calculate the appropriate figures?

You certainly can. We are happy to put you in touch with a Lamorbey conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Lease Extension matter before the tribunal for a Lamorbey premises is 103a Footscray Road in January 2014. The tribunal determines that the premium payable for the extended lease should be £34,500 according to the expert witness valuation calculation This case was in relation to 1 flat.

When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in Lamorbey what are the most common lease defects?

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

• A provision to repair to or maintain parts 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

You will have a problem when selling your property if you have a defective lease primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Nationwide Building Society, The Mortgage Works, and Alliance & Leicester all have express 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 purchaser to withdraw.