Having had my offer accepted I require leasehold conveyancing in The Hyde. Before diving in I require certainty as to the remaining lease term.

Assuming the lease is registered - and almost all are in The Hyde - then the leasehold title will always include the basic details of the lease, namely the date; the term; and the original parties. From a conveyancing perspective such details then enable any prospective buyer and lender to confirm that any lease they are looking at is the one relevant to that title.For any other purpose, such as confirming how long the term was granted for and calculating what is left, then the register should be sufficient on it's own.

There are only 68 years unexpired on my flat in The Hyde. I now want to extend my lease but my landlord is absent. What should I do?

If 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 Court. You will be obliged to demonstrate that you or your lawyers have done all that could be expected to track down the lessor. On the whole an enquiry agent may be useful to try and locate and to produce a report which can be accepted by the court as evidence that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer in relation to proving the landlord’s disappearance and the application to the County Court covering The Hyde.

Planning to exchange soon on a basement flat in The Hyde. Conveyancing solicitors inform 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 Hyde should include some of the following:

• Details of the parties to the lease, for example these could be the leaseholder (you), head lessor, freeholder
• Will you be prohibited or prevented from having pets in the property?
• You should be told what constitutes a Nuisance in the lease
• An explanation as to the provision in the lease to pay service charges - with regard to both the building, and the more general rights a leaseholder has
• 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
• Whether the landlord has obligations to ensure rights of quiet enjoyment over your property and do you know what it means in practice?
• The landlord’s obligations to repair and maintain the building. It is important that you know who is responsible for the repair and maintenance of every part of the building

I am employed by a long established estate agent office in The Hyde where we see a number of flat sales derailed as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given inconsistent advice from local The Hyde conveyancing solicitors. Could you confirm whether the vendor of a flat can initiate the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

As long as the seller has owned the lease for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to kick-start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means 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 has to be done before, or at the same time as completion of the sale.

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.

All being well we will complete the sale of our £ 275000 maisonette in The Hyde on Wednesday in a week. The freeholder has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, insurance certificate and previous years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a leasehold conveyance in The Hyde?

The Hyde conveyancing on leasehold flats normally necessitates the purchaser’s lawyer sending enquiries for the landlord to answer. Although the landlord is under no legal obligation to respond to such questions the majority will be content to assist. They may invoice a reasonable charge for responding to enquiries or supplying documentation. There is no upper cap for such fees. The average fee for the paperwork that you are referring to is over three hundred pounds, in some transactions it is in excess of £800. The administration charge required by the landlord must be accompanied by a synopsis of rights and obligations in relation to administration fees, otherwise the invoice is not strictly payable. Reality however dictates that you have little option but to pay whatever is demanded if you want to complete the sale of your home.

Having spent months of dialogue we cannot agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in The Hyde. Does the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal have jurisdiction to calculate the appropriate figures?

Most definitely. We can put you in touch with a The Hyde conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Lease Extension decision for a The Hyde property is First Floor Flat 61 Wilberforce Road in March 2014. The premium payable was £10,130 and the case was remitted back to the Willesden County Court to effect the Vesting Order (Claim No 3W103100). This case was in relation to 1 flat. The the unexpired term as at the valuation date was 71 years.

I purchased a 1st floor flat in The Hyde, conveyancing formalities finalised half a dozen years ago. Can you work out an approximate cost of a lease extension? Comparable flats in The Hyde with an extended lease are worth £229,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £65 per annum. The lease expires on 21st October 2082

You have 56 years remaining on your lease the likely cost is going to range between £29,500 and £34,000 plus professional fees.

The figure that we have given is a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we cannot give you a more accurate figure without more detailed investigations. You should not use the figures in tribunal or court proceedings. There may be additional concerns that need to be taken into account and you obviously want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not move forward based on this information without first getting professional advice.