I have recently realised that I have Sixty One years left on my flat in New Southgate. I need to extend my lease but my landlord is missing. What should I do?

On the basis that 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 mean that your lease can be granted an extra 90 years by the magistrate. You will be obliged to prove that you or your lawyers have made all reasonable attempts to track down the landlord. In some cases a specialist would be useful to try and locate and to produce an expert document to be accepted by the court as evidence that the landlord is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer in relation to investigating the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing New Southgate.

Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my 2 bed apartment in New Southgate.Conveyancing has not commenced but I have just received a quarterly maintenance charge invoice – what should I do?

It best that you discharge the invoice as normal because all ground rent and service charges will be apportioned on completion, so you will be reimbursed by the buyer for the period running from after the completion date to the next payment date. Most managing agents will not acknowledge the buyer until the service charges have been paid and are up to date so it is important for both buyer and seller for the seller to show that they are up to date. This will smooth the conveyancing process.

Last month I purchased a leasehold property in New Southgate. Do I have any liability for service charges relating to a period prior to completion of my purchase?

In a situation where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous owner and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. However, 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 busy estate agent office in New Southgate where we have witnessed a number of leasehold sales derailed as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received inconsistent advice from local New Southgate conveyancing solicitors. Please can you clarify whether the owner of a flat can initiate the lease extension process 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 commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the buyer need not have to wait 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed before, or at the same time as completion of the sale.

An alternative approach is 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.

Can you provide any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in New Southgate from the perspective of saving time on the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in New Southgate can be bypassed if you appoint lawyers as soon as you market your property and ask them to collate the leasehold information needed by the purchasers’ lawyers.
• Many freeholders or Management Companies in New Southgate charge for providing management packs for a leasehold premises. You or your lawyers should discover the actual amount of the charges. The management information can be applied for on or before finding a buyer, thus reducing delays. The average time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most common cause of delay in leasehold conveyancing in New Southgate.
• Some New Southgate leases require Landlord’s consent to the sale and approval of the buyers. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers put in hand bank and professional references. Any bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are able to meet the yearly 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 freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are settled before the property is marketed. The purchasers and their solicitors will be warry about purchasing 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 buyers, 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 are holding the original share document. Organising a re-issued share certificate can be a time consuming process and slows down many a New Southgate home move. Where a duplicate share certificate is needed, do contact the company director and secretary or managing agents (if applicable) for this at the earliest opportunity.

I am the proprietor of a ground flat in New Southgate. In the absence of agreement between myself and the freeholder, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal make a decision on the sum payable for the purchase of the freehold?

Where there is a missing landlord 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 First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to determine the sum to be paid.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement matter before the tribunal for a New Southgate premises is 23 Beaconsfield Road in July 2013. The Tribunals decided that the amount payable was £31,203 for the freehold. This case affected 2 flats. The the number of years remaining on the existing lease(s) was 70.31 years.

I purchased a split level flat in New Southgate, conveyancing having been completed 2006. Can you give me give me an indication of the likely cost of a lease extension? Corresponding properties in New Southgate with a long lease are worth £263,000. The ground rent is £60 yearly. The lease finishes on 21st October 2078

With 52 years unexpired we estimate the premium for your lease extension to span between £31,400 and £36,200 plus professional fees.

The suggested premium range above a general guide to costs for renewing a lease, but we are not able to supply the actual costs in the absence of comprehensive investigations. You should not use the figures in tribunal or court proceedings. There are no doubt other concerns that need to be taken into account and clearly you should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not move forward based on this information before getting professional advice.