Having checked my lease I have discovered that there are only Seventy years remaining on my flat in Southend. I now want to extend my lease but my landlord is can not be found. What are my options?

On the basis that you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for for permission to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be granted an extra 90 years by the magistrate. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have made all reasonable attempts to locate the lessor. For most situations a specialist may be useful to conduct investigations and to produce an expert document 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 conveyancer both on devolving into the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court covering Southend.

Expecting to complete next month on a ground floor flat in Southend. Conveyancing solicitors have said that they will have a report out to me tomorrow. What should I be looking out for?

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

• You should be sent a copy of the lease

I am hoping to put an offer on a small detached house that seems to meet my requirements, at a great figure which is making it all the more appealing. I have since discovered that the title is leasehold rather than freehold. I would have thought that there are particular concerns purchasing a house with a leasehold title in Southend. Conveyancing lawyers have are about to be instructed. Will my lawyers set out the risks of buying a leasehold house in Southend ?

Most houses in Southend are freehold rather than leasehold. This is one of the situations where having a local conveyancer who is familiar with the area can assist with the conveyancing process. it is apparent that you are buying in Southend so you should seriously consider shopping around for a Southend conveyancing solicitor and be sure that they have experience in advising on leasehold houses. First you will need to check the number of years remaining. As a lessee you will not be at liberty to do whatever you want with the house. The lease will likely included provisions such as obtaining the landlord’spermission to carry out changes to the property. You may also be required to pay a service charge towards the maintenance of the estate where the house is located on an estate. Your lawyer should appraise you on the various issues.

I am attracted to a couple of flats in Southend which have about 50 years remaining on the lease term. Will this present a problem?

There are no two ways about it. A leasehold apartment in Southend is a deteriorating asset as a result of the reducing lease term. The nearer the lease gets to zero years unexpired, the more it adversely affects the marketability of the property. For most buyers and lenders, leases with less than 75 years become less and less attractive. On a more positive note, leaseholders can extend their leases by serving a Section 42 Notice. One stipulation is that they must have owned the property for two years (unlike a Section 13 notice for purchasing the freehold, when leaseholders can participate from day one of ownership). When successful, they will have the right to an extension of 90 years to the current term and ground rent is effectively reduced to zero. Before moving forward with a purchase of a residence with a short lease term remaining you should talk to a solicitor specialising in lease extensions and leasehold enfranchisement. We are are happy to put you in touch with Southend conveyancing experts who will explain the options available to you during an initial telephone conversation free of charge. A more straightforward and quicker method of extending would be to contact your landlord directly and sound him out on the prospect of extending the lease You may find he or she is happy to negotiate informally and willing to consider your offer straight off, without having to involve anyone else. This will save you time and money and it could help you reach a lower price on the lease. You need to ensure that any new terms represent good long-term value compared with the standard benefits of the Section 42 Notice and that onerous clauses are not inserted into any redrafting of the lease.

I am a negotiator for a busy estate agency in Southend where we see a number of leasehold sales jeopardised due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received contradictory information from local Southend conveyancing firms. Could you shed some light as to whether the seller of a flat can initiate 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. The benefit of this is that the proposed purchaser need not have 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.

An alternative approach is to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord 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.

Having spent months of dialogue we cannot agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Southend. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?

Most certainly. We can put you in touch with a Southend conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement case for a Southend premises is 75 Woolstone Road in February 2012. the decision of the Tribunal was that the appropriate amount to be paid to purchase the freehold was the sum of £17,711 . This case related to 2 flats. The unexpired lease term was 68.28 and 158.