Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Seventy years remaining on my lease in Little Ilford. I need to get lease extension but my freeholder is missing. What are my options?

If you meet the appropriate requirements, 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 granted an extra 90 years by the magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to find the lessor. On the whole an enquiry agent may be useful to conduct investigations and prepare a report which can be used as evidence that the freeholder can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a solicitor both on proving the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court overseeing Little Ilford.

I am looking at a two flats in Little Ilford which have in the region of fifty years remaining on the leases. Will this present a problem?

There are no two ways about it. A leasehold flat in Little Ilford is a wasting asset as a result of the shortening lease. The nearer the lease gets to zero years unexpired, the more it reduces the marketability of the property. For most purchasers and mortgage companies, leases with under 75 years become less and less marketable. On a more positive note, leaseholders can extend their leases by serving a Section 42 Notice. One stipulation is that they must have owned the premises 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 Little Ilford 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.

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Little Ilford with the purpose of speeding up the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Little Ilford can be avoided where you instruct lawyers the minute your agents start marketing the property and request that they start to put together the leasehold documentation needed by the buyers representatives.
• The majority freeholders or Management Companies in Little Ilford charge for providing management packs for a leasehold property. You or your lawyers should discover the fee that they propose to charge. The management pack can be applied for as soon as you have a buyer, thus reducing delays. The typical amount of time it takes to obtain the necessary information is three weeks. It is the most frequent reason for frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Little Ilford.
• In the event that you altered the property did you need the Landlord’s permission? In particular have you installed wooden flooring? Most leases in Little Ilford state that internal structural alterations or laying down wooden flooring necessitate a licence from the Landlord acquiescing to such works. Where you fail to have the approvals in place you should not contact the landlord without checking with your solicitor in the first instance.
• If there is a history of conflict with your freeholder or managing agents it is essential that these are resolved prior to the flat being put on the market. The buyers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a property where there is a current dispute. You may need to swallow your pride and discharge any arrears of service charge or settle the dispute prior to completion of the sale. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled prior to the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You are still duty bound to disclose details of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is clearly preferable to reveal the dispute as over rather than unresolved.
• If you are supposed to have a share in the freehold, you should ensure that you are holding the original share document. Arranging a new share certificate is often a time consuming formality and slows down many a Little Ilford home move. Where a reissued share certificate is needed, you should approach the company officers or managing agents (where relevant) for this as soon as possible.

Our conveyancer has advised that he intends to complete and exchange simultaneously on our sale of a £ 500000 garden flat in Little Ilford in just under a week. The managing agents has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and previous years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in Little Ilford?

Little Ilford conveyancing on leasehold flats ordinarily involves fees being raised by management companies :

• Completing pre-exchange questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Little Ilford
• 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 Little Ilford leasehold premises is £350. For Little Ilford 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.

After months of correspondence we are unable to agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Little Ilford. Does the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal have jurisdiction to calculate the appropriate figures?

Where there is a absentee freeholder 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 calculate the amount due.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement matter before the tribunal for a Little Ilford flat is 9 Granville Road in June 2014. The tribunal determines the enfranchisement price payable by the applicants for the freehold was £32,548 This case affected 5 flats. The the unexpired term as at the valuation date was 73.8 years.

Are there common problems that you come across in leases for Little Ilford properties?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Little Ilford. All leases are individual 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:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the property
• 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 will likely cause issues when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Santander, Barnsley Building Society, and Bank of Ireland 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 grant the mortgage, obliging the buyer to pull out.

I invested in buying a garden flat in Little Ilford, conveyancing having been completed half a dozen years ago. Can you let me have an estimated range of the fair premium for a lease extension? Corresponding properties in Little Ilford with an extended lease are worth £265,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £45 charged once a year. The lease comes to an end on 21st October 2082

You have 56 years left to run we estimate the premium for your lease extension to range between £31,400 and £36,200 as well as professional fees.

The figure that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to supply a more accurate figure without more detailed investigations. Do not use this information in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt other concerns that need to be considered and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Neither should you take any other action based on this information without first getting professional advice.