I am hoping to complete next month on a basement flat in The Hale. Conveyancing lawyers assured me that they will have a report out to me on Monday. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

The report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in The Hale should include some of the following:

• Will you be prohibited or prevented from having pets in the property?

You need to be told what constitutes a Nuisance in the lease

You should have a good understanding of the insurance provisions

Changes to the flat (alterations and additions)

I don't know whether the lease allows me to alter or improve anything in the flat - you should know whether it applies to all alterations or just structural alteration, and whether consent is required

The landlord’s rights to access the flat you be made aware that your landlord has rights of access and I know how much notice s/he must provide.

Responsibility for repairing the window frames For details of the information to be contained in your report on your leasehold property in The Hale please ask your lawyer in ahead of your conveyancing in The Hale

Back In 2005, I bought a leasehold house in The Hale. Conveyancing and Santander mortgage are in place. I have received a letter from someone claiming to own the reversionary interest in the property. Attached was a demand for arrears of ground rent dating back to 1991. The conveyancing solicitor in The Hale who previously acted has long since retired.Do I pay?

First make enquiries of HMLR to be sure that the individual purporting to own the freehold is indeed the new freeholder. It is not necessary to instruct a The Hale conveyancing firm to do this as you can do this on the Land Registry website for a few pound. You should note that in any event, even if this is the rightful freeholder, under the Limitation Act 1980 the limitation period for recovery of ground rent is six years.

Do you have any advice for leasehold conveyancing in The Hale from the point of view of saving time on the sale process?

• Much of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in The Hale can be reduced where you instruct lawyers as soon as you market your property and ask them to put together the leasehold documentation which will be required by the buyers conveyancers.
• Many landlords or managing agents in The Hale charge for providing management packs for a leasehold homes. You or your lawyers should discover the fee that they propose to charge. The management information can be applied for as soon as you have a buyer, thus accelerating the process. The typical amount of time it takes to obtain the necessary information is three weeks. It is the most usual reason for frustration in leasehold conveyancing in The Hale.

A minority of The Hale leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers obtain bank and professional references. The bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are 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 actual amount of the service charge so that they can pass this information on to the buyers or their lawyers.

If you have had 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 warry about purchasing a flat where there is a current dispute. You may have to bite the bullet and pay 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 particulars of the dispute to the buyers, but it is clearly preferable to present the dispute as historic as opposed to unsettled.

You may think that you are aware of the number of years left on your lease but it would be advisable verify this via your lawyers. A purchaser's lawyer will not be happy to advise their client to where the remaining number of years is under 75 years. It is therefore essential at an as soon as possible that you identify whether the lease requires a lease extension. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your premises on the market for sale.

Our conveyancer has advised that he intends to complete and exchange simultaneously on the disposal of our £225000 flat in The Hale next Friday . The freeholder has quoted £408 for Certificate of Compliance, building insurance schedule and previous years statements of service charge. Is the landlord entitled to charge an administration fee for a leasehold conveyance in The Hale?

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

• Answering conveyancing due diligence enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in The Hale
• 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 lawyer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for The Hale leasehold property is £350. For The Hale 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 provide the information.

Following months of correspondence we are unable to agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in The Hale. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?

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 make a decision on the price.

An example of a Lease Extension case for a The Hale residence is 20 Orchard Court Stonegrove in June 2009. The tribunal decided that a premium of £11,040 should be payable for the new lease This case affected 1 flat. The the number of years remaining on the existing lease(s) was 71.55 years.

What makes a The Hale lease problematic?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in The Hale. Most leases are unique and legal mistakes in the legal wording can sometimes mean that certain clauses are erroneous. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• Repairing obligations 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

You could encounter difficulties when selling your property if you have a defective lease as they can affect a potential buyer’s ability to obtain a mortgage. National Westminster Bank, Norwich and Peterborough Building Society, and Godiva Mortgages Ltd all have express conveyancing instructions when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is defective they may refuse to provide security, forcing the buyer to pull out.