Park Royal leasehold conveyancing: Q and A’s
I have recently realised that I have Fifty years remaining on my flat in Park Royal. I need to extend my lease but my landlord is can not be found. What are my options?
On the basis that you qualify, 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 lengthened by the magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you have used your best endeavours to track down the landlord. On the whole a specialist should be useful to carry out a search and to produce an expert document which can be used as proof that the landlord can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer in relation to investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court overseeing Park Royal.
Due to exchange soon on a garden flat in Park Royal. Conveyancing lawyers assured me 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 Park Royal should include some of the following:
- You should be sent a copy of the lease
Last month I purchased a leasehold property in Park Royal. Do I have any liability for service charges for periods before 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. However, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. It is an essential part of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to ensure 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 am employed by a long established estate agency in Park Royal where we see a number of leasehold sales put at risk as a result of short leases. I have received conflicting advice from local Park Royal conveyancing solicitors. Could you confirm whether the owner of a flat can commence the lease extension formalities for the buyer?
Provided that 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. This means that the proposed purchaser need not have to sit tight for 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed before, or simultaneously with completion of the sale.
Alternatively, it may be possible to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord 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 buyer.
I own a ground floor flat in Park Royal. In the absence of agreement between myself and the landlord, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal make a decision on the sum payable for a lease extension?
You certainly can. We can put you in touch with a Park Royal conveyancing firm who can help.
An example of a Lease Extension matter before the tribunal for a Park Royal property is 99 Connell Crescent in May 2013. the Tribunal held that the relevant sum for the purposes of the lease extension should be £72,566 to be paid by the leaseholder This case related to 1 flat. The the unexpired term as at the valuation date was 28.42 years.
What makes a Park Royal lease defective?
There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Park Royal. Most leases are individual and legal mistakes in the legal wording can sometimes mean that certain sections are missing. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:
- Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the building
- A duty to insure the building
- 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 can cause issues when trying to sell a property as they can affect a potential buyer’s ability to obtain a mortgage. Yorkshire Building Society, Coventry Building Society, and Barclays Direct all have express 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 problematic they may refuse to grant the mortgage, forcing the buyer to pull out.
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