There are only Seventy years left on my lease in Rayners Lane. I now want to get lease extension but my freeholder is can not be found. What options are available to me?

On the basis that you meet the appropriate requirements, 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. You will be obliged to prove that you have used your best endeavours to track down the landlord. On the whole a specialist may be useful to carry out a search and prepare a report which can be accepted by the court as evidence that the freeholder can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a property lawyer in relation to proving the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court overseeing Rayners Lane.

I am hoping to complete next month on a basement flat in Rayners Lane. Conveyancing lawyers inform me that they will have a report out to me next week. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

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

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

I am a negotiator for a long established estate agent office in Rayners Lane where we have witnessed a few leasehold sales put at risk as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received conflicting advice from local Rayners Lane conveyancing firms. Could you clarify whether the seller of a flat can commence the lease extension process for the buyer?

As long as 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. The benefit of this is 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 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.

What advice can you give us when it comes to appointing a Rayners Lane conveyancing firm to deal with our lease extension?

If you are instructing a solicitor for lease extension works (regardless if they are a Rayners Lane conveyancing practice) it is most important that he or she should be familiar with the legislation and specialises in this area of conveyancing. We recommend that you speak with two or three firms including non Rayners Lane conveyancing practices prior to instructing a firm. If the firm is ALEP accredited then that’s a bonus. Some following of questions could be helpful:

• If the firm is not ALEP accredited then what is the reason?

I have tried to negotiate informally with with my landlord for a lease extension without getting anywhere. Can the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal decide on such matters? Can you recommend a Rayners Lane conveyancing firm to help?

Where there is a missing landlord or where there is disagreement about what the lease extension should cost, under the relevant statutes you can apply to the LVT to calculate the price payable.

An example of a Lease Extension decision for a Rayners Lane flat is GFF 1 Holyrood Avenue in May 2014. The Tenant wished to acquire a new (extended) lease and applied to the Willesden County Court who granted a vesting order on 20* March2013. The Tribunal decied that the premium to be paid was £9,062 This case was in relation to 1 flat. The the unexpired term as at the valuation date was 79 years.

What makes a Rayners Lane lease problematic?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Rayners Lane. Most leases is drafted differently and drafting errors can sometimes mean that certain provisions are not included. The following missing provisions could result in a defective lease:

• 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 issues when trying to sell a property as they can affect a potential buyer’s ability to obtain a mortgage. Accord Mortgages Ltd, The Mortgage Works, and Britannia all have express conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is problematic they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the purchaser to withdraw.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Rayners Lane