My fiance and I may need to sub-let our Queen's Park garden flat temporarily due to a career opportunity. We instructed a Queen's Park conveyancing practice in 2004 but they have since shut and we did not have the foresight to get any advice as to whether the lease permits subletting. How do we find out?

A small minority of properties in Queen's Park do contain a provision to say that subletting is only permitted with prior consent from the landlord. The landlord cannot unreasonably withhold but, in such cases, they would need to see references. Experience dictates that problems are usually caused by unsatisfactory tenants rather than owner-occupiers and for that reason you can expect the freeholder to take up the references and consider them carefully before granting consent.

Last month I purchased a leasehold house in Queen's Park. Do I have any liability for service charges relating to a period prior to my ownership?

In a situation 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. Strange as it may seem, 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 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 agency in Queen's Park where we have witnessed a number of leasehold sales derailed as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given inconsistent advice from local Queen's Park conveyancing solicitors. Please can you clarify whether the vendor of a flat can commence the lease extension formalities for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

Provided that the seller has owned the lease 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 buyer 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 before, or simultaneously with completion of the disposal of the property.

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 buyer.

Can you provide any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Queen's Park with the intention of saving time on the sale process?

• Much of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Queen's Park can be avoided where you instruct lawyers the minute your agents start advertising the property and ask them to put together the leasehold information which will be required by the purchasers’ lawyers.
• If you have carried out any alterations to the premises would they have required Landlord’s permission? In particular have you installed wooden flooring? Most leases in Queen's Park state that internal structural alterations or installing wooden flooring calls for a licence issued by the Landlord approving such alterations. Where you fail to have the paperwork to hand you should not communicate with the landlord without checking with your solicitor before hand.

A minority of Queen's Park leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this is the case, you should notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers obtain bank and professional references. The bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is 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 buyers or their lawyers.

If there is a history of conflict with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are settled prior to the flat being marketed. The purchasers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a property where there is a current dispute. You may have to bite the bullet and pay any arrears of service charge or settle the dispute prior to completion of the sale. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled ahead of the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You will still have to reveal particulars of the dispute to the purchasers, but it is better to present the dispute as historic rather than unsettled.

If you hold a share in a the freehold, you should make sure that you are holding the original share document. Organising a replacement share certificate can be a lengthy formality and slows down many a Queen's Park conveyancing transaction. If a duplicate share certificate is necessary, you should approach the company director and secretary or managing agents (where relevant) for this sooner rather than later.

If all goes to plan we aim to complete the sale of our £125000 apartment in Queen's Park in seven days. The managing agents has quoted £396 for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and 3 years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in Queen's Park?

Queen's Park conveyancing on leasehold apartments nine out of ten times involves fees being levied by managing agents :

• Answering conveyancing due diligence questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Queen's Park
• 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 conveyancer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Queen's Park leasehold property is £350. For Queen's Park 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 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 Queen's Park conveyancing firm to act on my behalf?

if there is a absentee freeholder or where there is dispute about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant statutes you can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to decide the amount due.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement case for a Queen's Park flat is 4 & 4A Charteris Road in June 2009. the Tribunal held that the price to be paid for the enfranchisement of 4/4a Charteris Road to be £15,510 for at 4and £15,694 for at 4a This case related to 2 flats. The remaining number of years on the lease was 70.02 years.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Queen's Park