I only have Sixty One years left on my lease in Park Royal. I am keen to get lease extension but my landlord is absent. What should I do?

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 granted an extra 90 years by the Court. However, you will be required to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have made all reasonable attempts to locate the freeholder. For most situations an enquiry agent may be useful to try and locate and prepare an expert document to be used as proof that the freeholder can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer both on investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Park Royal.

Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my garden apartment in Park Royal.Conveyancing is yet to be initiated but I have just received a quarterly maintenance charge invoice – Do I pay up?

It best that you pay 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 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. This will smooth the conveyancing process.

Do you have any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Park Royal from the perspective of expediting the sale process?

• Much of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Park Royal can be reduced if you instruct lawyers the minute you market your property and ask them to put together the leasehold documentation needed by the purchasers’ solicitors.
• Many freeholders or Management Companies in Park Royal levy fees for providing management packs for a leasehold premises. You or your lawyers should discover the actual amount of the charges. The management pack can be applied for as soon as you have a buyer, thus reducing delays. The average time it takes to obtain the necessary information is three weeks. It is the most common reason for delay in leasehold conveyancing in Park Royal.

A minority of Park Royal leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this is the case, you should 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 annual 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 service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the purchasers or their solicitors.

If you have the benefit of shareholding in the freehold, you should make sure that you hold the original share document. Organising a duplicate share certificate can be a time consuming formality and frustrates many a Park Royal home move. Where a reissued share is necessary, do contact the company director and secretary or managing agents (if relevant) for this as soon as possible.

You believe that you know the number of years remaining on your lease but it would be wise to double-check via your lawyers. A purchaser's conveyancer will be unlikely to recommend their client to proceed with the purchase of a leasehold property the remaining number of years is less than 80 years. It is therefore important at an as soon as possible that you identify whether the lease requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your property on the market for sale.

All being well we will complete our sale of a £300000 garden flat in Park Royal on Tuesday in a week. The freeholder has quoted £324 for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and 3 years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in Park Royal?

Park Royal conveyancing on leasehold flats nine out of ten times results in administration charges raised by freeholders :

• Answering conveyancing due diligence questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Park Royal
• 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 Park Royal leasehold premises is £350. For Park Royal 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 supply the information.

I have attempted and failed to negotiate with my landlord to extend my lease without any joy. Can the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal decide on such matters? Can you recommend a Park Royal conveyancing firm to represent me?

Absolutely. We can put you in touch with a Park Royal conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Lease Extension case for a Park Royal flat 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 was in relation to 1 flat. The remaining number of years on the lease was 28.42 years.

When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in Park Royal what are the most frequent lease defects?

Leasehold conveyancing in Park Royal is not unique. Most leases is drafted differently and legal mistakes in the legal wording can sometimes mean that certain sections are erroneous. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain elements of the premises
• Insurance obligations
• A provision for the recovery of money spent for the benefit of another party.
• Maintenance charge proportions which don’t add up to the correct percentage

You could encounter a problem when selling your property if you have a defective lease as they can affect a potential buyer’s ability to obtain a mortgage. Santander, Barnsley Building Society, and Barclays Direct all have express conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is defective they may refuse to provide security, obliging the purchaser to withdraw.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Park Royal