Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only 72 years left on my lease in Leyton. I now wish to get lease extension but my landlord is can not be found. What should I do?

If you meet the appropriate requirements, 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 mean that your lease can be granted an extra 90 years by the magistrate. You will be obliged to prove that you have done all that could be expected to find the landlord. For most situations an enquiry agent would be useful to carry out a search and prepare an expert document to be accepted by the court as proof that the landlord can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a property lawyer in relation to devolving into the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Leyton.

I own a leasehold flat in Leyton. Conveyancing and Yorkshire Building Society mortgage are in place. I have received a letter from someone claiming to own the freehold. It included a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1995. The conveyancing practitioner in Leyton who previously acted has long since retired.Any advice?

The first thing you should do is make enquiries of the Land Registry to be sure that this person is in fact the registered owner of the freehold reversion. You do not need to incur the fees of a Leyton conveyancing lawyer to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for less than a fiver. You should note that in any event, even if this is the rightful freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

Do you have any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Leyton from the point of view of saving time on the sale process?

• Much of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Leyton can be bypassed if you appoint lawyers the minute your agents start advertising the property and ask them to put together the leasehold documentation which will be required by the buyers representatives.
• Some Leyton leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers obtain bank and professional references. The bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are able to meet the annual service charge and the actual amount of the service charge should be quoted in the bank’s letter. You will therefore need to provide your estate agents with the actual amount of the service charge so that they can pass this information on to the purchasers or their lawyers.

If you have had conflict with your landlord or managing agents it is very important that these are settled prior to the flat being marketed. The purchasers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a property where there is a current dispute. You will have to accept that you will have to pay any arrears of service charge or resolve the dispute prior to completion of the sale. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled ahead of the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You will still have to reveal particulars of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is clearly preferable to reveal the dispute as over rather than ongoing.

If you are supposed to have a share in the freehold, you should ensure that you have the original share certificate. Arranging a new share certificate can be a time consuming process and frustrates many a Leyton home move. Where a reissued share is required, you should approach the company director and secretary or managing agents (where relevant) for this sooner rather than later.

You may think that you are aware of the number of years left on your lease but you should verify this by asking your solicitors. A buyer’s conveyancer will not be happy to advise their client to where the lease term is less than 75 years. It is therefore important at an as soon as possible that you consider whether the lease term for your property needs extending. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your home on the market for sale.

We expect to complete our sale of a £500000 maisonette in Leyton in just under a week. The management company has quoted £360 for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and 3 years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in Leyton?

For most leasehold sales in Leyton conveyancing will involve, queries regarding 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 Leyton
• 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 Leyton leasehold premises is £350. For Leyton 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 provide answers.

I am the registered owner of a first flat in Leyton. In the absence of agreement between myself and the landlord, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal make a decision on the amount due for a lease extension?

in cases where there is a missing landlord or if there is dispute about the premium for a lease extension, under the relevant legislation you can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to assess the sum to be paid.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement case for a Leyton property is 12 Nutfield Road in July 2014. the Tribunal judged that the price to be paid by the applicants for the freehold interest should be £19,572 This case related to 2 flats. The unexpired lease term was 72.02 years.

In relation to leasehold conveyancing in Leyton what are the most frequent lease defects?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Leyton. All leases are unique and legal mistakes in the legal wording 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 parts of the property
• A duty to insure the building
• A provision for the recovery of money spent for the benefit of another party.
• Service charge per centages that don't add up correctly leaving a shortfall

You could encounter 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. Halifax, Skipton Building Society, and Britannia 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 defective they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the purchaser to pull out.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Leyton