I only have Sixty One years unexpired on my lease in Ruxley. I now wish to extend my lease but my freeholder is absent. What should I do?

On the basis that 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 magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you or your lawyers have done all that could be expected to find the landlord. On the whole a specialist should be useful to try and locate and to produce a report which can be used as proof that the landlord is indeed missing. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer in relation to proving the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court overseeing Ruxley.

I am hoping to put an offer on a small detached house that seems to meet my requirements, at a reasonable figure which is making it all the more appealing. I have just been informed that the title is leasehold rather than freehold. I would have thought that there are issues purchasing a leasehold house in Ruxley. Conveyancing solicitors have are soon to be instructed. Will they explain the issues?

The majority of houses in Ruxley are freehold and not leasehold. This is one of the situations where having a local solicitor who is familiar with the area can assist with the conveyancing process. it is apparent that you are purchasing in Ruxley so you should seriously consider shopping around for a Ruxley conveyancing practitioner and check that they are used to transacting on leasehold houses. First you will need to check the number of years remaining. Being a lessee you will not be at liberty to do whatever you want with the house. The lease will likely included provisions for example requiring the landlord’sconsent to carry out changes to the property. It may be necessary to pay a maintenance charge towards the upkeep of the communal areas where the property is part of an estate. Your conveyancer will report to you on the legal implications.

What advice can you give us when it comes to appointing a Ruxley conveyancing practice to deal with our lease extension?

If you are instructing a conveyancer for lease extension works (regardless if they are a Ruxley conveyancing firm) it is most important that they be familiar with the legislation and specialises in this area of work. We advise that you make enquires with two or three firms including non Ruxley conveyancing practices before you instructing a firm. If the firm is ALEP accredited then so much the better. Some following of questions could be of use:

• How experienced is the firm with lease extension legislation?
• If they are not ALEP accredited then why not?

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Ruxley from the perspective of saving time on the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Ruxley can be avoided if you instruct lawyers the minute you market your property and ask them to put together the leasehold information needed by the purchasers’ lawyers.
• If you have carried out any alterations to the residence would they have required Landlord’s permission? Have you, for example installed wooden flooring? Ruxley leases often stipulate that internal structural alterations or addition of wooden flooring necessitate a licence issued by the Landlord acquiescing to such works. Where you fail to have the approvals in place do not communicate with the landlord without contacting your solicitor in advance.
• Some Ruxley leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this is the case, it would be prudent to notify your estate agents to make sure that the purchasers put in hand financial (bank) and professional references. The bank reference should make it clear that the buyer is financially capable of paying 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 buyers or their lawyers.
• If you have had conflict with your landlord or managing agents it is very important that these are settled prior to the flat being put on the market. The buyers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a flat where a dispute is ongoing. You will have to accept that you will have to discharge any arrears of service charge or resolve the dispute prior to the buyers completing the purchase. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled prior to the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You are still duty bound to disclose details of the dispute to the buyers, but it is clearly preferable to reveal the dispute as historic as opposed to unresolved.
• If you have the benefit of shareholding in the Management Company, you should ensure that you have the original share document. Arranging a re-issued share certificate can be a lengthy formality and delays many a Ruxley conveyancing transaction. If a reissued share certificate is required, you should approach the company director and secretary or managing agents (where applicable) for this sooner rather than later.

Completion in due on our sale of a £ 200000 flat in Ruxley next Friday . The management company has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Certificate of Compliance, building insurance schedule and 3 years service charge statements. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge exorbitant fees for a flat conveyance in Ruxley?

For most leasehold sales in Ruxley conveyancing will involve, questions about the management of a building inevitably needing to be answered directly by the freeholder or its agent, this includes :

• Completing conveyancing due diligence questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Ruxley
• 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 Ruxley leasehold premises is £350. For Ruxley 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 answers.

I own a first flat in Ruxley. 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?

if there is a missing freeholder or where there is disagreement about what the lease extension should cost, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) to judgment on the premium.

An example of a Lease Extension case for a Ruxley residence is 103a Footscray Road in January 2014. The tribunal determines that the premium payable for the extended lease should be £34,500 according to the expert witness valuation calculation This case affected 1 flat.

Ruxley Leasehold Conveyancing - Sample of Queries before buying

If a Ruxley lease has fewer than 80 years it will impact the marketability of the flat. Check with your mortgage company that they are willing to go ahead with the loan given the lease term. Leases with fewer than 80 years remaining means that you will most likely have to extend the lease sooner rather than later and it is worth discovering how much this would cost. Remember, in most cases you will be required to have owned the property for two years before you are eligible to extend the lease. In the main the outlay for major works tend not to be wrapped into the maintenance charges, albeit that there some managing agents in Ruxley require leasehold owners to contribute towards a sinking fund created for the specific purpose of building a fund for larger works. The majority of Ruxley leasehold flats will have a service bill for the upkeep of the block levied by the freeholder. Where you buy the apartment you will have to meet this contribution, usually in instalments accross the year. This can differ from several hundred pounds to thousands of pounds for blocks with lifts and large communal areas. In all likelihood there will be a rentcharge to be met yearly, ordinarily this is not a significant sum, say approximately £50-£100 but you should to enquire it because sometimes it could be many hundreds of pounds.