I only have Fifty years remaining on my lease in West Brompton. I need to extend my lease but my landlord is missing. What should I do?

On the basis that you qualify, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application to the County Court for for permission to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will mean that your lease can be extended by the Court. You will be obliged to prove that you or your lawyers have done all that could be expected to locate the freeholder. In some cases an enquiry agent may be helpful to carry out a search and prepare an expert document to be accepted by the court as proof that the landlord is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a conveyancer both on investigating the landlord’s absence and the application to the County Court covering West Brompton.

I am tempted by the attractive purchase price for a couple of apartments in West Brompton which have about 50 years left on the lease term. Should I regard a short lease as a deal breaker?

There are no two ways about it. A leasehold flat in West Brompton is a wasting asset as a result of the reducing lease term. The closer the lease gets to its expiry date, the more it adversely affects the salability of the property. The majority of buyers and banks, leases with under eighty years become less and less marketable. 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 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 West Brompton conveyancing experts who will explain the options available to you during an initial telephone conversation free of charge. More often than not it is possible to negotiate informally with the freeholder to extend 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've recently bought a leasehold property in West Brompton. Am I liable to pay service charges for periods before my ownership?

Where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous lessee and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. Strange as it may seem, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. It is an essential part of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to ensure to have an up to date clear service charge receipt before completion of your purchase. If you have a mortgage this is likely to be a requirement of your lender.

If you purchase part way through an accounting year you may be liable for charges not yet demanded even if they relate to a period prior to your purchase. In such circumstances your conveyancer would normally arrange for the seller to set aside some money to cover their part of the period (usually called a service charge retention).

I work for a reputable estate agency in West Brompton where we see a number of flat sales derailed as a result of leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received conflicting advice from local West Brompton conveyancing solicitors. Please can you clarify whether the owner of a flat can start the lease extension formalities for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

Provided that the seller has been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to 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 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 sale.

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 purchaser.

Do you have any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in West Brompton with the aim of speeding up the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the delay in leasehold conveyancing in West Brompton can be avoided if you get in touch lawyers as soon as your agents start advertising the property and request that they start to put together the leasehold documentation needed by the buyers representatives.
• Many freeholders or Management Companies in West Brompton levy fees for supplying management packs for a leasehold premises. You or your lawyers should discover the fee that they propose to charge. The management information sought as soon as you have a buyer, thus accelerating the process. The average time it takes to obtain the necessary information is three weeks. It is the most common cause of delay in leasehold conveyancing in West Brompton.

I am the registered owner of a garden flat in West Brompton. Given that I can not reach agreement with the landlord, can the Leasehold valuation Tribunal make a decision on the premium payable for the purchase of the freehold?

You certainly can. We are happy to put you in touch with a West Brompton conveyancing firm who can help.

An example of a Freehold Enfranchisement decision for a West Brompton property is 5 Wetherby Gardens in June 2014. the Tribunal concluded that the price to be paid for the freehold of the property was £2,369,452. This case related to 5 flats. The unexpired term was 38.98 years.