I only have 68 years unexpired on my lease in Southgate. I need to extend my lease but my landlord is missing. What should I do?

If you qualify, 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 granted an extra 90 years by the magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you have done all that could be expected to track down the landlord. In some cases a specialist would be useful to try and locate and to produce an expert document to be used as proof that the landlord can not be located. It is wise to seek advice from a conveyancer both on devolving into the landlord’s absence and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Southgate.

I own a leasehold flat in Southgate. Conveyancing and Skipton Building Society mortgage organised. A letter has just been received from someone claiming to own the reversionary interest in the property. It included a ground rent demand for rent dating back to 1998. The conveyancing solicitor in Southgate who acted for me is not around.What should I do?

The first thing you should do is contact the Land Registry to make sure that this person is indeed the new freeholder. You do not need to incur the fees of a Southgate conveyancing solicitor to do this as it can be done on-line for a few pound. Rest assured that in any event, even if this is the legitimate landlord, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

I am looking at a two apartments in Southgate which have in the region of fifty years left on the lease term. Do I need to be concerned?

There are no two ways about it. A leasehold flat in Southgate is a deteriorating asset as a result of the shortening lease. The nearer the lease gets to its expiry date, the more it adversely affects the salability of the premises. For most purchasers and mortgage companies, leases with less than 75 years become less and less marketable. On a more upbeat note, leaseholders can extend their leases by serving a Section 42 Notice. One stipulation is that they must have owned the premises 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 premises 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 Southgate 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 They may agree to a smaller lump sum and an increase in the ground rent, but to shorter extension terms in return. 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 employed by a reputable estate agent office in Southgate where we have witnessed a number of flat sales put at risk as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given contradictory information from local Southgate conveyancing solicitors. Please can you clarify whether the owner of a flat can instigate 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 need not have to sit tight for 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed before, or at the same time as completion of the disposal of the property.

Alternatively, it may be possible 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.

If all goes to plan we aim to complete the sale of our £ 325000 maisonette in Southgate on Monday in a week. The managing agents has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and previous years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a flat conveyance in Southgate?

Southgate conveyancing on leasehold flats typically results in administration charges invoiced by managing agents :

• Completing pre-exchange questions
• Where consent is required before sale in Southgate
• 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 solicitor will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Southgate leasehold property is £350. For Southgate 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 obliged to supply answers.

I have had difficulty in trying to reach an agreement for a lease extension in Southgate. Can the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal adjudicate on premiums?

Where there is a missing landlord or if 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 determine the price payable.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement matter before the tribunal for a Southgate premises is 23 Beaconsfield Road in July 2013. The Tribunals decided that the amount payable was £31,203 for the freehold. This case was in relation to 2 flats. The remaining number of years on the lease was 70.31 years.

Leasehold Conveyancing in Southgate - A selection of Questions you should ask before buying

It would be sensible to discover as much as you can concerning the managing agents as they will affect your use and enjoyment of the property. Being a leasehold owner you are often in the clutches of the managing agents from a financial perspective and when it comes to daily issues such as the tidiness of the communal areas. Enquire of prospective neighbours what they think of them. On a final note, investigate as to the dates that you are obliged pay the maintenance charge to the relevant party and precisely how they are spending that money.