I wish to sublet my leasehold apartment in New Addington. Conveyancing solicitor who did the purchase is retired - so can't ask her. Is permission from the freeholder required?

A lease governs relations between the landlord and you the flat owner; in particular, it will say if subletting is prohibited, or permitted but only subject to certain caveats. The accepted inference is that if the lease contains no specific ban or restriction, subletting is allowed. The majority of leases in New Addington do not prevent subletting altogether – such a provision would adversely affect the market value the flat. Instead, there is usually a basic requirement that the owner notifies the freeholder, possibly supplying a duplicate of the sublease.

Planning to exchange soon on a basement flat in New Addington. Conveyancing lawyers have said that they will have a report out to me within the next couple of days. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

Your report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in New Addington should include some of the following:

• Details of the parties to the lease, for example these could be the leaseholder (you), head lessor, landlord
• The physical extent of the demise. This will be the property itself but could also incorporate a loft or basement if appropriate.
• Defining your rights in relation to common areas in the building.By way of example, does the lease include a right of way over a path or hallways?
• You should have a good understanding of the insurance provisions
• Repair and maintenance of the flat
• Whether the landlord has obligations to ensure rights of quiet enjoyment over your property and do you know what it means in practice?
• What the implications are if you breach a clause of your lease?

I own a leasehold house in New Addington. Conveyancing and Clydesdale mortgage are in place. A letter has just been received from someone claiming to own the reversionary interest in the property. It included a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1995. The conveyancing solicitor in New Addington who acted for me is not around.Do I pay?

First contact the Land Registry to be sure that the individual claiming to own the freehold is indeed the registered owner of the freehold reversion. You do not need to incur the fees of a New Addington 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.

Last month I purchased a leasehold flat in New Addington. Do I have any liability for service charges relating to a period prior to my ownership?

Where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous lessee and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. Strange as it may seem, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. A critical element of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to be sure to have an up to date clear service charge receipt before completion of your purchase. If you have a mortgage this is likely to be a requirement of your lender.

If you purchase part way through an accounting year you may be liable for charges not yet demanded even if they relate to a period prior to your purchase. In such circumstances your conveyancer would normally arrange for the seller to set aside some money to cover their part of the period (usually called a service charge retention).

I work for a long established estate agent office in New Addington where we see a few flat sales jeopardised due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received inconsistent advice from local New Addington conveyancing solicitors. Could you clarify whether the seller of a flat can start the lease extension formalities for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

As long as 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. The benefit of this is 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 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 purchaser.

After months of correspondence we are unable to agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in New Addington. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?

in cases where there is a missing freeholder or if there is dispute about the premium for a lease extension, under the relevant statutes it is possible to make an application to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal to make a decision on the price payable.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement decision for a New Addington flat is The Woodlands 95 Purley Park Road in April 2009. The Tribunals own valuation produced the fi
gure of £37,912. This case related to 6 flats. The the unexpired term as at the valuation date was 78.32 years.

New Addington Leasehold Conveyancing - Sample of Queries before Purchasing

Does this lease have more than 90 years remaining? Does the lease include onerous restrictions?