I only have 68 years left on my flat in West Heath. I now want to extend my lease but my landlord is missing. What options are available to me?

If you meet the appropriate requirements, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can apply to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be granted an extra 90 years by the Court. However, you will be required to prove that you or your lawyers have used your best endeavours to locate the lessor. In some cases a specialist may be helpful to carry out a search and to produce an expert document which can be accepted by the court as evidence that the freeholder is indeed missing. It is advisable to get professional help from a solicitor in relation to devolving into the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court covering West Heath.

I am hoping to complete next month on a basement flat in West Heath. Conveyancing lawyers have said that they are sending me a report within the next couple of days. What should I be looking out for?

Your report on title for your leasehold conveyancing in West Heath should include some of the following:

• Details of the parties to the lease, for example these could be the leaseholder (you), head lessor, freeholder
• Are pets allowed in the flat?
• Whether your lease has a provision for a reserve fund?
• 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 premises and do you know what it means in practice?
• Responsibility for repairing the window frames
• What options are open to you if a neighbour breach a clause of their lease?

I am tempted by the attractive purchase price for a two maisonettes in West Heath both have approximately forty five years remaining on the lease term. should I be concerned?

A lease is a right to use the property for a prescribed time frame. As the lease gets shorter the marketability of the lease reduces and results in it becoming more costly to extend the lease. For this reason it is often a good idea to increase the term of the lease. It is often difficult to sell a property with a short lease as mortgage companies may be unwilling to lend money on such properties. Lease extension can be a difficult process. We advise that you seek professional help from a solicitor and surveyor with experience in this field

If all goes to plan we aim to complete the disposal of our £ 425000 maisonette in West Heath in just under a week. The managing agents has quoted £<Macro 'feeRangeWithVAT'> for Landlord’s certificate, building insurance schedule and 3 years statements of service charge. Is the landlord entitled to charge such fees for a leasehold conveyance in West Heath?

West Heath conveyancing on leasehold maisonettes usually involves the buyer’s conveyancer sending enquiries for the landlord to answer. Although the landlord is under no legal obligation to answer these enquiries the majority will be willing to do so. They are at liberty invoice a reasonable administration fee for answering enquiries or supplying documentation. There is no upper cap for such fees. The average costs for the information that you are referring to is £350, in some transactions it is above £800. The management information fee invoiced by the landlord must be accompanied by a synopsis of entitlements and obligations in relation to administration charges, without which the charge is not strictly payable. Reality however dictates that you have no choice but to pay whatever is demanded if you want to exchange contracts with the buyer.

After years of dialogue we simply can't agree with our landlord on how much the lease extension should cost for our flat in West Heath. Does the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal have jurisdiction to calculate the appropriate figures?

if there is a absentee freeholder or where there is disagreement about the premium for a lease extension, under the relevant statutes you can apply to the LVT to assess the price.

An example of a Lease Extension decision for a West Heath premises 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 affected 13 flats. The unexpired lease term was 76 years.

In relation to leasehold conveyancing in West Heath what are the most frequent lease defects?

Leasehold conveyancing in West Heath is not unique. All leases are individual and drafting errors can result in certain provisions are not included. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain elements of the building
• A duty to insure the building
• 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

A defective lease will likely cause problems when trying to sell a property as they can affect a potential buyer’s ability to obtain a mortgage. Santander, Barnsley Building Society, and Aldermore all have very detailed requirements 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.

West Heath Leasehold Conveyancing - A selection of Questions you should ask Prior to buying

Make sure you find out if there are any onerous restrictions in the lease. By way of example plenty of leases prohibit pets being permitted in certain buildings in West Heath. If you like the apartmentin West Heath yet your dog can’t live with you then you will be presented with a difficult choice.