Expecting to complete next month on a studio apartment in Wennington. Conveyancing lawyers have said that they are sending me a report within the next couple of days. Are there areas in the report that I should be focusing on?

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

• Details of the parties to the lease, for example these could be the leaseholder (you), head lessor, landlord
• Does the lease prevent you from renting out the flat, or working from home
• 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?
• Responsibility for repairing the window frames
• What options are open to you if a neighbour is in violation of a provision in their lease?

Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my ground floor flat in Wennington.Conveyancing has not commenced but I have just had a half-yearly service charge invoice – what should I do?

It best that you pay the invoice as normal because all ground rent and service charges will be apportioned on completion, so you will be reimbursed by the buyer for the period running from after the completion date to the next payment date. Most management companies will not acknowledge the buyer until the service charges have been paid and are up to date so it is important for both buyer and seller for the seller to show that they are up to date. This will smooth the conveyancing process.

I am employed by a long established estate agency in Wennington where we have witnessed a number of flat sales derailed as a result of short leases. I have been given contradictory information from local Wennington conveyancing firms. Could you shed some light as to whether the vendor of a flat can instigate 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 commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the buyer 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 simultaneously with 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.

Do you have any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Wennington from the point of view of saving time on the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in Wennington can be avoided where you get in touch lawyers the minute your agents start advertising the property and ask them to put together the leasehold information which will be required by the purchasers’ lawyers.
• In the event that you altered the property did you need the Landlord’s permission? In particular have you laid down wooden flooring? Wennington leases often stipulate that internal structural alterations or installing wooden flooring calls for a licence from the Landlord approving such works. Should you dont have the paperwork in place you should not contact the landlord without contacting your solicitor in the first instance.
• If you have had any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is essential that these are settled prior to the flat being marketed. The buyers and their solicitors will be nervous about purchasing a property where there is a current dispute. You may have to bite the bullet and pay any arrears of service charge or settle the dispute prior to completion of the sale. 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 purchasers, but it is better to present the dispute as over as opposed to unsettled.
• If you hold a share in a the freehold, you should make sure that you hold the original share certificate. Arranging a replacement share certificate is often a lengthy process and delays many a Wennington conveyancing transaction. If a duplicate share certificate is necessary, do contact the company director and secretary or managing agents (if relevant) for this sooner rather than later.
• You believe that you know the number of years left on your lease but it would be wise to double-check via your lawyers. A buyer’s lawyer will not be happy to advise their client to to exchange contracts if the lease term is under 80 years. In the circumstances it is essential at an as soon as possible that you consider whether the lease term 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 sale of our £ 275000 flat in Wennington in 8 days. The management company has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and 3 years statements of service charge. Is it legal for a freeholder to charge such fees for a leasehold conveyance in Wennington?

Wennington conveyancing on leasehold flats usually necessitates the buyer’s solicitor submitting enquiries for the landlord to answer. Although the landlord is not legally bound to address such questions most will be willing to do so. They are at liberty charge a reasonable administration fee for responding to enquiries or supplying documentation. There is no set fee. The average costs for the paperwork that you are referring to is over three hundred pounds, in some situations it exceeds £800. The administration charge levied by the landlord must be sent together with a synopsis of rights and obligations in relation to administration fees, otherwise the charge is not strictly payable. Reality however dictates that you have no option but to pay whatever is requested of you if you want to exchange contracts with the buyer.

After months of dialogue we simply can't agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in Wennington. Can we issue an application to the Residential Property Tribunal Service?

if there is a missing freeholder or where there is dispute about what the lease extension should cost, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the LVT to assess the price.

An example of a Lease Extension case for a Wennington residence is Various @ Colombus Square in January 2012. the Tribunal calculated the premiums to be paid for new leases for each of the flats in Mariners Walk to be £3822 and the premium to be paid for the new lease of 2 Knights Court to be £4439. This case was in relation to 13 flats. The remaining number of years on the lease was 76 years.

Leasehold Conveyancing in Wennington - Sample of Questions you should ask before buying

Is there a share of the freehold? It would be wise to find out as much as you can about the managing agents as they will impact your use and enjoyment of the property. As the proprietor of a leasehold property you are frequently in the clutches of the managing agents both financially and when it comes to every day matters such as the tidiness of the common parts. Ask other people what they think of them. Finally, find out the dates that the maintenance charges are due to the managing agents and precisely how they are spending the funds.