I only have Fifty years left on my lease in Poplar. I now wish to extend my lease but my freeholder is can not be found. What options are available to me?

If you qualify, 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. However, you will be required to prove that you or your lawyers have done all that could be expected to track down the freeholder. On the whole a specialist would be helpful to try and locate and to produce a report to be accepted by the court as evidence that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a solicitor both on investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Poplar.

My wife and I purchased a leasehold flat in Poplar. Conveyancing and Birmingham Midshires mortgage organised. A letter has just been received from someone saying they have taken over the reversionary interest in the property. It included a ground rent demand for rent dating back to 1993. The conveyancing practitioner in Poplar who acted for me is not around.What should I do?

The first thing you should do is make enquiries of HMLR to make sure that this person is indeed the new freeholder. You do not need to instruct a Poplar conveyancing firm to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for £3. Rest assured that regardless, even if this is the rightful landlord, under the Limitation Act 1980 no more than 6 years of rent can be collected.

I am a negotiator for a busy estate agent office in Poplar where we have experienced a number of flat sales derailed due to short leases. I have been given inconsistent advice from local Poplar conveyancing firms. Can you clarify whether the owner of a flat can initiate 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 commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the proposed purchaser can avoid having 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 prior to, or at the same time as completion of the sale.

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.

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Poplar from the perspective of speeding up the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Poplar can be bypassed where you appoint lawyers the minute your agents start marketing the property and ask them to put together the leasehold information which will be required by the buyers lawyers.
• The majority landlords or Management Companies in Poplar charge for providing management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should discover the fee that they propose to charge. The management information sought as soon as you have a buyer, thus reducing delays. The typical amount of time it takes to obtain the necessary information is three weeks. It is the most frequent reason for delay in leasehold conveyancing in Poplar.

I am the leaseholder of a ground floor flat in Poplar. Given that I can not reach agreement with the freeholder, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal determine the premium due for a lease extension?

in cases where there is a missing landlord or where there is disagreement about what the lease extension should cost, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 it is possible to make an application to the LVT to decide the price payable.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement matter before the tribunal for a Poplar flat is 12, 14 & 16 Hull Close in May 2010. the Tribunal determined that the premium payable for the acquisition of the freehold to the subject premises was the sum of £18,300 This case related to 3 flats. The the unexpired residue of the current lease was 101.61 years.

When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in Poplar what are the most common lease defects?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Poplar. Most leases are unique and drafting errors can sometimes mean that certain sections are erroneous. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• A provision to repair to or maintain elements of the building
• Insurance obligations
• Clauses dealing with recovering service charges for expenditure on the building or common parts.
• Maintenance charge proportions which don’t add up to the correct percentage

A defective lease will likely cause problems when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. HSBC Bank, Skipton Building Society, and Alliance & Leicester all have very detailed 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 grant the mortgage, obliging the purchaser to pull out.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Poplar