There are only 62 years left on my flat in North End. I now wish to extend my lease but my landlord is absent. 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 Court. You will be obliged to prove that you have done all that could be expected to locate the lessor. For most situations a specialist may be helpful to try and locate and to produce an expert document to be accepted by the court as proof that the freeholder can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer both on investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court covering North End.

Due to sign contracts shortly on a studio apartment in North End. Conveyancing solicitors assured me that they report fully on Monday. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

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

• You should be sent a copy of the lease

The length of the lease term You should be advised as what happens when the lease ends, and informed of the importance of not letting the lease term falling below eighty years

Details of the parties to the lease, for example these could be the leaseholder (you), head lessor, landlord

Setting out your legal entitlements in respect of common areas in the block.By way of example, does the lease permit a right of way over an accessway or staircase?

Ground rent - how much and when you need to pay, and also know whether this is subject to change

Whether the landlord has obligations to ensure rights of quiet enjoyment over your property and do you know what it means in practice?

Responsibility for repairing the window frames For a comprehensive list of information to be contained in your report on your leasehold property in North End please enquire of your lawyer in ahead of your conveyancing in North End

I’m about to sell my 2 bed apartment in North End.Conveyancing has not commenced but I have just had a quarterly service charge invoice – should I leave it to the buyer to sort out?

Your conveyancing lawyer is likely to suggest that you should 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 management companies will not acknowledge the buyer unless 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. Having a clear account will assist your cause and will leave you no worse off financially.

What advice can you give us when it comes to appointing a North End conveyancing practice to deal with our lease extension?

When appointing a conveyancer for your lease extension (regardless if they are a North End conveyancing firm) it is essential that he or she should be familiar with the legislation and specialises in this area of conveyancing. We recommend that you talk with two or three firms including non North End conveyancing practices prior to instructing a firm. Where the conveyancing practice is ALEP accredited then so much the better. Some following of questions might be helpful:

• If the firm is not ALEP accredited then why not?

Can they put you in touch with client in North End who can give a testimonial?

All being well we will complete the sale of our £125000 maisonette in North End next week. The landlords agents has quoted £396 for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and 3 years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a flat conveyance in North End?

For most leasehold sales in North End 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 conveyancing due diligence questions
• Where consent is required before sale in North End
• 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 solicitor will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for North End leasehold property is £350. For North End 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.

I inherited a first floor flat in North End. Given that I can not reach agreement with the landlord, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal determine the amount due for a lease extension?

if there is a absentee landlord or if there is disagreement about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant statutes you can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to judgment on the price.

An example of a Lease Extension case for a North End flat is Various @ Colombus Square in January 2012. the Tribunal calculated the premiums to be paid for new leases for each of the flats in Mariners Walk to be £3822 and the premium to be paid for the new lease of 2 Knights Court to be £4439. This case affected 13 flats. The the unexpired term as at the valuation date was 76 years.

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Lease Extensions in North End